Da Capo Al Fine: Season 4
by Cassie Valentine
Summary: As Luke struggles to figure out what he wants in life, Lorelai and Rory are trying get along without each other. Charlie is slowly trying to find her position in this new order. When the end of the road appears, no one will be where they expected to be.
1. Chapter 1

So, here we are again. I can't promise an episode once a week. I have a solid plan for this story, but the muses are being stubourn.

* * *

Heathrow airport was huge, much bigger than the air port they had landed at in main land Europe at the start of their adventure. Lorelai and Rory had stopped just inside the doors to stop and marvel at the large building and all the people rushing around. Eventually they had wandered over to the right desk and checked in. They tried to keep the eye rolling to a minimum as security demanded to search through their large backpacks and the pair tried, though Lorelai failed, to not curse as they tried to not only pack all their dirty clothes back in, but arrange them so that they kept the breakable souvenirs protected and the paper ones from crumpling.

"Oh my God," Lorelai grumbled as they finally got their bags checked. "We are never travelling like this again."

"Deal," Rory said as she and her mother collapsed into the uncomfortable chairs until their boarding was called. The pair slouched in their chairs, talking quietly while trying to get comfortable and stay awake at the same time.

Eventually their flight was called and they filled in to the line of other passengers, their boarding passes and pass ports held tightly in their hands. As they took their seats on the plane, they began discussing what they were going to do first. They battled briefly over the shower until Lorelai reminded Rory that she was going to unpack as soon as she got home.

"Okay," Lorelai said once the plane was finally at cruising altitude. "We need a plan for beating the jet lag." Rory looked up from undoing her boot laces. "We have one week to reconnect with Charlie and remind her that she does belong to us before we ship you off to Yale."

"When are we getting her back?" Rory asked, going back to her laces. She smiled a little as she saw her mother quickly bend over and start undoing her laces as well.

"Uhhhhhhhh . . ." Lorelai muttered as she battled with the double knots that she had tied in her laces. Rory toed her boots off, curled up on her seat and managed to track down a stewardess and ask for a couple of blankets and pillows as her mother continued to battle with her boots. "Mom and dad are in Martha's Vineyard until Thursday," Lorelai said as she finally straightened up and curled up in her seat as well. "So, after Friday night dinner I suppose. My mother sounded very relaxed the last time we called, so I'm assuming that she and my father hired that nanny she isn't going to tell me about." Rory couldn't help but giggle as she helped her mother get her blanket open and spread out.

"How different do you think she'll be?" Rory asked. Lorelai knew that Rory was worried about her relationship with Charlie changing. After being away most of the summer and then knowing that she was going to be away most of the year at Yale was putting a little extra pressure on Rory to make a lasting impression on the toddler.

Lorelai shrugged. "She'll be a little taller, probably have more to say. I wouldn't be surprised if she's clingy for a few days, worried we're going to leave her somewhere again." She shrugged again as she yawned a little and rearranged her pillow so she was more comfortable. Rory stayed quiet and considered this for a moment.

"This was a good trip," she finally said with a smile as she too snuggled down for the long flight back to New York.

"A very good trip," Lorelai agreed with a yawn. Like she had done every night they had been in the hostels, Lorelai stayed awake until Rory had drifted off.

* * *

Summer at the Vineyard was turning out better than Emily ever could have hoped. With a nanny to watch Charlie and an abundance of social activities to show her off at, Emily was pleased beyond belief. However, after sitting by and watching Emily's performance Richard finally put his foot down and dismissed the nanny for their last week in the Vineyard. Emily had, of course, argued that this was a bad idea, but when Richard began naming all the things they used to do with Lorelai, and all the things they had always hoped to do with Rory, she had finally given in.

"Now, aren't you glad I suggested this?" Richard as he and Emily strolled along slowly behind Charlie as the 26 month old hurried ahead of them, running in and out of the surf.

"Yes Richard, I'm glad you suggested this," Emily replied with a smile as she strung an arm around Richard's waist. She frowned a little as she felt something fuzzy against her arm. "What on earth?" she asked as she pulled Charlotte, Charlie's spider, out of Richard's back pocket. She examined it for a moment before she held it up to Richard. He stared at it for a moment before he shrugged, smiled sheepishly and took it back from her, tucking it into his back pocket once again.

"Emily! Richard!" the pair heard behind them all of a sudden. Charlie heard it too and paused in her explorations of the beach. She stared at the new couple who were approaching for a moment before she hurried back over to her grandparents.

"Shira!" Emily greeted the woman with false warmness as Richard bent to pick up the toddler and offer her Charlotte. "We haven't seen you all summer," she said as Shira Huntzberger and her husband, Mitchum, finally met up with the pair.

"Oh, I know," Shira said as she and Emily greeted each other. "Logan and his friends ended up leaving for their yachting adventure later than expected, so that threw our whole schedule off. We're staying an extra two weeks to make up for lost time."

"Well, lucky you," Emily replied. "We, on the other hand, got to spend all summer with a very special guest," she said, straightening the hem of Charlie's sundress. While she knew that it was rather impractical to dress the toddler in a white eyelet dress, she couldn't resist.

"Well, isn't she just the prettiest little thing!" Shira said as she took Charlie in. A summer of playing in the ocean and on the beach had left Charlie tanned with sun bleached hair and with the white sundress and bright blue eyes, she looked every inch the poster child for a summer spent in Martha's Vineyard. "Lorelai's youngest?"

"Yes, Charlotte," Emily gushed, arranging the sundress one last time before Richard and Mitchum headed off down the beach a little to discuss their own matters. "Lorelai and Rory are on their first tour of Europe, so we've had her all summer and it has been just wonderful. You know, you read in all the brochures about how Martha's Vineyard is a real family attraction, but you never really realise how true that is until you have a little one running under foot again." Shira nodded politely and the pair fell into an easy conversation about who had been to what social event, who had had the best table and who had worn the best outfit. As the ladies conversation drew to a close, so did the one between the men and, eventually the couples continued on their way. Emily and Richard spent a little time discussing what had been talked about before they went back to supervising the hunt for the perfect seashell collection.

* * *

While the plane ride home from Heathrow was fine, the pair slept most of the way, the van ride back to Stars Hollow was a nightmare. Lorelai and Rory both spent the entire time biting their tongues to hold back jokes about how even Luke drove faster than this guy.

Of course, as soon as Babette ran out of the house and started going on and on about itineraries and how they were late, Rory instantly wished she were back on that shuttle van.

Fortunately, Lorelai soon concocted a little white lie, prompted Rory to play her part in it and Babette was soon headed back home so the girls could fall into bed. On the plus side, they now had hot cocoa sitting, ready, on the counter.

As predicted, Rory immediately went to unpack her grungy bag, not wanting to clothes to get any grosser than they already were and Lorelai followed her daughter into her room, collapsing face down on the bed as she took a moment to remember that no, pillows didn't have to smell like feet. Nor did beds have to feel like boards that were barely wide enough for a person. The pair discussed how they were to avoid jet leg once again as Rory greeted her closet full of clothes and eventually, Lorelai prided herself from Rory's bed and headed upstairs to her own bed.

"Close the door," Rory called after her as she wandered over to her sock drawer. She fingered the knobs as Lorelai sent her a little look as she pulled the door closed behind her. "Hello boys . . ." Rory greeted her sock drawer as she finally pulled the drawer open.

Satisfied that Rory was happy, Lorelai couldn't help be shake her head as a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. She kicked some of the packing aftermath out of the way as she trudged up the stairs to her beloved shower and her even more beloved bed.

"Ugh," was all she could say as she made a face and took in the disaster that still awaited her. She'd had high hopes that the magic cleaning elves would show up, but they hadn't. The bed was still a mess of Charlie's things while hers were either still in the closet, hanging out of her drawers or scattered around the room. The boxes full of no longer needed baby stuff were still packed up in a corner of the already over crowded room.

She had been already to get rid of them not long after she had packed them up, but then Sookie had announced she was pregnant, and then the inn had caught fire and, well, needless to say they were still here. 

With a heavy sigh, Lorelai kicked some of the debris out of her way before she began scooping, with large armfuls, Charlie's things from her bed and dumping them into her crib. When that was done, she grabbed one of her remaining t-shirts and a pair of sweat pants before she began debating the long walk to the shower instead of simply changing and falling into bed.

Being the girl that she was, the shower won out and she slowly dragged herself down the hallway.

* * *

Lorelai rested her head against the cupboard door in the kitchen as she tried to resign herself to the fact that there was no coffee in the house. She needed the coffee to stay more than 3 steps ahead of the jet lag that was threatening to grab a hold of her.

"There's no coffee," Lorelai blurted out as soon as she saw Rory appear in the doorway of her room.

"Well good morning to you too, mother. Why yes, I do feel ok today," Rory remarked, somewhat sarcastically as she leaned against her door frame, arms crossed over her chest. Lorelai turned to send her eldest a glare before she began to tear through the kitchen, looking for coffee in all her usual hiding places.

"There has to be coffee," Lorelai continued, still mostly ignoring Rory. "Without the coffee, there is no standing or writing and without the standing or writing, there will be to sorting or labelling of the souvenirs we brought home."

"I'm gonna take a shower," Rory said, ignoring Lorelai like she was ignoring her. Lorelai stopped what she was doing and turned to stare at Rory as she rummaged through her drawers for something clean to wear. "And then I'm going to start labelling while you take a shower." Rory listened as her mother grumbled something about taking a shower the night before. "Fine, don't shower then," she said as she finally came out of her room and stood in front of Lorelai. "Why don't you start in on the mess that I know is building up in your room," she suggested with a smile before she brushed past her mother and headed for the stairs.

Lorelai pouted and crossed her arms over her chest as she watched her daughter breeze past her and out of the kitchen. When she was done boring a hole into Rory, she turned her gaze to her empty coffee cup and stared mournfully into it for a moment before she heaved a sigh and followed through on Rory's suggestion of cleaning up her room. Lorelai placed the mug on the counter with a little more force than was necessary before she slowly trudged up the stairs.

* * *

Later in the morning, Rory found herself wandering around the living room, cue cards and a Sharpie in her hand, as she labelled the souvenirs she had spread out around the room. She paused in her writing as she turned to watch her mother come down the stairs, freshly showered, and arguing with some European consulate about the fact that yes, they were home, yes, they were find and yes, Babette had over reacted.

"Ok, Belgium is done, Lisbon is calling me back, Berlin has no idea what I'm talking about and Paris is pissed," Lorelai summarised for Rory as she hung up the phone and made a note on her list about how the consulate calling was going. The pair finally moved away from discussing consulates and onto organising the rest of the souvenirs. The next problem the pair ran into was how to get said gifts out of the house to their recipients once they realised they had no tote bags to use.

"Oh yeah," Lorelai remarked sarcastically as she came back down stairs, lugging her enormous back pack behind her while Rory returned from her room, dragging hers behind her as well. "This isn't going to be embarrassing at all."

"Well, do you have a better idea?" Rory asked as she began to pack things into her bag. Lorelai couldn't help but sigh as she made a last ditch effort to come up with something other than their packs to use. Eventually she gave in to the fact that there was no other option and she began to fill her pack as well.

* * *

As the girls wandered slowly towards town, their large hiking back packs strapped on tightly, they were pleased to see that Starts Hollow hadn't changed at all while they were gone. Small groups of tourists were still milling through town, pausing every now and then to consult a map or read one of the many plaques that detail some historical event.

They side stepped a few groups of kids who were playing some type of game and batted casually at the small bugs that were still flying around.

"Ah Main street," Lorelai said with a happy little sigh as the town center finally came into view. Rory couldn't help but return the happy sigh, taking a deep breath and enjoying the familiar smells.

"Hey, the soda shop is open," Lorelai remarked as they came to a stop in front of the new building.

"Oh cool," Rory agreed as she started to take in all the clear glass jars of candy that lined the counter and sat just behind the large picture window. Lorelai nudged Rory and soon their attention was focused on Luke who was currently arguing with Taylor over something. The pair moved away from the window to stand at the door way so they could hear better. Lorelai and Rory shared a smile when they realised that Luke was yelling about the fact that Taylor had put a giant window in the wall of the diner while he had been off on his cruise with Nicole.

"What do you think, biscotti moment?" Lorelai asked after a moment, seeing as how the argument between Luke and Taylor showed no signs of tapering off. Rory agreed and the pair both quickly slipped off their back backs and Rory watched eagerly as Lorelai dug through her pack to find the non-descript white paper bag that held the much prized biscotti. The pair soon each had a piece and were happily munching away until Lorelai realised what she had been trying to remember since they had been in Spain. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, her eyes growing wide as she continued to watch Luke and Taylor.

"Hm. . . What?" Rory asked absently. When her mother didn't answer, she finally tore her attention away from the antics in the soda shop to face Lorelai. "What's the matter?" she asked when she finally saw the look on Lorelai's face.

"Luke," she answered simply, gesturing at Luke while her hand holding the biscotti fell limply to her side.

"Yeah, he's finally lost it," Rory snickered as she turned her attention back to the fight and her biscotti again. She was more than a little pleased to see that Luke was now rushing around the shop, shoving his hands into the wooden barrels of candy and throwing the handfuls around the shop while Taylor chased after him.

"No, we forgot Luke," Lorelai repeated as she turned to look at Rory. Rory turned to look at her mother, offering a confused glance and asking what they had forgotten Luke. Lorelai sent Rory a look, her eyes growing slightly wider as she willed Rory to figure things out.

"Oh, we forgot to bring him back a gift!" Rory exclaimed, the hand that was holding her biscotti fell to her side. "Oh no!" The girls turned their attention back to the scene that was still unfolding in the soda shop before they began to complain that they hadn't been able to find anything good enough for Luke. Lorelai took a quick moment to lament the fact that she hadn't gotten the matador's outfit from Spain that she had liked.

Lorelai and Rory grew silent for a moment as they tried to decide what to do. When Lorelai finally opened her mouth, all Rory could do was stare at her for a moment.

"Pick up what?" she asked when she heard that Lorelai's plan was to buy something in Stars Hollow and tell the diner owner it was from Denmark. "This is Stars Hollow. Everything you buy here has a Hello Kitty stamped on the bottom," she pointed out as she turned her attention back to her biscotti. Lorelai glared at Rory slightly when she heard the tinge of amusement that was in her voice.

"Well, we have to get him something," she said firmly. "We cannot go into Luke's empty handed," Lorelai decided as she opened the biscotti bag and tossed her piece back in. The small grin fell off of Rory's face when she realised that she was going to have to make due with the biscotti in her hand since they weren't going to get to Luke's to eat any time soon. "Come on," Lorelai said as she rolled the bag closed and shoved it in her pack. She quickly slung the back pack up onto her shoulders and started to walk towards Sookie's house.

"Hungry!" Rory complained as she too grabbed her bag and quickly followed after her mother. Lorelai ignored Rory's complaints as she headed towards her best friends house. She missed both Sookie and Jackson and was dying to know how Sookie's pregnancy was going.

"Sookie!" Lorelai called out loudly and brightly as she and Rory strode up the path to the front door. Sookie quickly jumped out of the swing that was on the front porch and rushed down to meet the pair. As she asked a million questions, Jackson came out to greet them as well. As Sookie continued to as questions at a rate that didn't allow for an answer, he quickly propelled his wife, and the Gilmore's, into the house.

When they got into the living room, Lorelai quickly dropped her back pack to the ground and greeted Sookie properly, taking a moment to introduce herself to the baby before she tried to convince Rory to come over. The women soon took pleasure in mocking both Jackson and Rory's attitude towards the pregnancy before Rory and Jackson banded together.

With a shake of their heads, the women left the two to their buttons and the illusion that it was 1954 in favour of heading out to the shed to discuss the sec of the baby as well as to admire everything Sookie had already bought.

The pair quickly entered the sea of blue that was the shed and took up seats in the arm chair and the rocker. They discussed life in Stars Hollow for a while before Lorelai shifted the conversation towards Luke.

"I guess he went on that cruise, huh?" Lorelai asked as she fidgeted with the fleece blanket she had pulled onto her lap.

"Yup," Sookie replied casually as she started to rock the arm chair a little. A coy smile was playing on her lips because she was pretty sure that Lorelai was digging for information that pertained to things other than cruise Luke took.

"That's good," Lorelai said as she started to rock too, trying to sound casual. "That's good that he went. He needed a vacation. He works hard, that one," she rambled. "Always cooking, making the coffee, taking the orders," she trailed off, not really sure where she was going with this conversation or why she had started it in the first place. Lorelai stopped rocking abruptly when Sookie mentioned that she was pretty sure something had happened on the cruise. Lorelai's hands clutched the corner of the fleece blanket a little tighter as Sookie told her about how she and Jackson had asked him about the cruise and he had done anything and everything to get away from them.

"Huh," Lorelai said after a moment as she considered what Sookie had said. A comfortable silence fell over the pair for a moment as Lorelai began to rock again. Sookie moved her gaze away from the blanket she was refolding to look at Lorelai for a moment. Her friend was obviously deep in thought over something. She dropped her gaze back to the blanket when Lorelai finally looked up. "So. . . Are you gonna name him Lorelai?" she asked with a smile.

"Absolutely," Sookie assured her with a smile. "That wouldn't be confusing at all," she added with a dismissive wave of her hand. The pair chuckled for a moment before Lorelai tossed the blanket on her lap back where she had found it before she stood up and started to wander a little deeper into the shed. The pair stayed silent for a moment until Lorelai asked if Sookie and Jackson would be willing to keep an eye on Charlie while she got Rory settled at Yale. The chef agreed without hesitation before asking her when they were going to pick her up.

"She and my parents are on their way home from the Vineyard today, so we'll rescue her tomorrow at Friday night diner," Lorelai replied as she fingered some of the little outfits that were hanging on the wall. "I can hardly wait to have her home again, Rory too. I love the fact that I spent the summer, just me and Rory before she goes to Yale, but. . . " she trailed off as she offered a wistful sigh.

"You miss your baby," Sookie filled in, a soft smile on her face as she twisted to look at Lorelai. She watched as a ghost of a smile appeared on Lorelai's face before she moved on to inspect something else.

"I miss my baby," she replied, her back still to Sookie as she began leafing through a pile of receiving blankets. "We had to stop calling them after a couple of weeks," Lorelai explained. "I mean, we sent post cards on a regular basis and emailed when ever we could, but it was just getting to hard to hang up on her because she was crying her little heart out." Lorelai finally turned to face Sookie again. "The last time we called, she knew about 40 words and was trying to string them all together to convince us to come home."

"Poor Charlie," Sookie said sympathetically as she watched Lorelai wandered through the maze of furniture until she was back at the front of the shed again. Lorelai agreed with a sigh as she finally sat herself back down again. She made a crack about how this would make a good chapter in the tell all book Charlie would write in the future before she remembered the boxes of baby stuff in her room. She quickly offered them to Sookie, who thanked her, but said she was pretty sure the baby wouldn't need any dressed.

"Ha, ha," Lorelai offered sarcastically before she explained that it was just things like bedding, toys, bottles. . . Things that could be used by either a boy or a girl. Sookie chuckled a little before she told Lorelai that she'd think about it. Lorelai nodded in satisfaction as they fell into silence again for a moment, each enjoying the quiet of the afternoon and the warm summer breeze that was blowing lightly through the air.

* * *

Eventually, Sookie and Lorelai pulled themselves out of the garage and headed back into the house where Sookie pulled a jar of jam out of Jackson's cupboard and she couldn't help but laugh as both she and Lorelai tried to remember how to spell 'Fruit De La Terre' properly.

"You took French in high school," Lorelai had said immediately with a large smile on her face and Sookie quickly fired back that Lorelai had just come back from France. "Like that's an excuse," Lorelai muttered as she finally got the label written. They pair dissolved into giggles again before Rory came into the room and discovered their plan. All the teenager could do was shake her head at the pair of them as Lorelai told her to keep her mouth shut as she grabbed the jar and headed off to find her pack.

"He's gonna know," Rory said quickly after they had said their good byes to Sookie and Jackson and started on their rounds again.

"He is not," Lorelai insisted as she stared at the label. Rory continued on about how Luke was a bright guy and was going to know. Lorelai countered that Luke would only know the jam was from Jackson's pantry if Rory told him. As they continued down the street towards the town square, Rory could only shake her head as Lorelai spilled out a story about Sochelle and her burning desire to make designer jam.

"I'm gonna get all the credit," Lorelai warned Rory as they broke off from each other.

"As it should be," Rory assured her as she headed towards Lane's house while Lorelai headed towards the diner. They called out to each other a few more times before Rory disappeared into the Kim house and Lorelai disappeared into the diner.

Lorelai smiled at the familiarity of the busy diner as she sauntered up to the counter. She slid her pack off and tucked it under the counter before she slid onto a stool. Luke immediately greeted her with a coffee mug that he quickly filled before they pair started to discuss her trip to Europe.

Eventually, Lorelai presented Luke with the jar of jam and started to spin him the story she had made up about Sochelle the orphan who lived with the nuns in France. She got about halfway through her story before she saw the look of mild amusement on his face and finally caved and told him the truth about where she had gotten the jam from.  
"How did you know?" she asked him, a desperate, disappointed tone in her voice. He couldn't help but smile at her.

"Just a wild guess," he said slowly, trying to control the grin on his face. He listened with mild amusement as she explained how they had tried to find him something, but hadn't been able to find anything good enough. He shrugged and assured her that there were no hard feelings since he hadn't gotten her anything either.

Lorelai's face lit up when she heard this and immediately started to ask him about his cruise with Nicole. She frowned a little as he started to avoid her questions and give her vague answers. Eventually, he began to look for a way out of the conversation, finding his refuge in the kitchen.

"Uh, I'm gonna go check on your food," he said quickly, pointing a thumb over his shoulder as he finally made it into the kitchen.

"Okay," she said, more than a little confused at his avoidance of the cruise subject. She sat back on her stool for a moment before she leaned forward again. "I didn't order anything . . . Yet," she called out to him as she tried to catch sight of Luke. "Hmm," was all she could say as she sat back on the stool and turned her attention back to her coffee. She shook her head as she tried to puzzle out what Luke was going to bring her or if he was going to realise that she hadn't actually ordered anything.

* * *

After convincing Mrs. Kim that the "I do not want to know the sex of my baby" button was about Sookie and Jackson's baby, Lane and Rory escaped up to her room where Lane filled Rory in on what had been going on in town while she was gone. When she had been caught up on most of the gossip, Rory began to tell Lane all about Europe and the things she and her mother had seen and done.

Eventually Rory said her good byes and headed off to join her mother at Luke's. She greeted Kirk on her way past Taylor's market and did a double take when she saw the poster Kirk had just finished putting up on the window. She stared, open mouthed, at the large picture of herself and the writing that proclaimed her to be Stars Hollow's Ice Cream Queen. She furrowed her brow as she quickly pulled the poster down and stalked towards the ice cream shop as Kirk yelled at her about taking down the poster.

Rory found Taylor quickly and her attempts to calmly talk to him about his assumptions quickly turned into an argument while left Rory feeling like the bad guy. She did want to help Taylor out, but she didn't have time. She and Lorelai had the whole week planned out and he hadn't asked if she'd be the Ice Cream Queen, he had just assumed that she'd do it. Rory heaved a sigh as Taylor blew her off and sauntered away to tend to something else in the store. She turned towards the window in the wall and was some what relieved to see her mother on the other side. They locked eyes and Lorelai offered a small smile and a wave. She frowned when she saw the irritated look on Rory's face and she quickly stood up, mouthing 'what's wrong?' as she held up her hands. Rory quickly turned the posted the right way around and held it up for Lorelai to see.

She was more than a little pleased to see the shocked look on her mother's face before she dropped her head forward and gave it a bit of a shake.

* * *

Lorelai laid in bed that night, making lists in her head and on paper. After Rory's discovery that she had written the date of her college orientation down wrong, their plans had been dramatically altered. They no longer had a week to get ready, they now had a day to gather all the supplies Rory needed for her dorm and just a short sliver of evening to remind Charlie that she belonged with Lorelai and Rory, not Emily and Richard.

Lorelai yawned and gave up on her lists after a while since her Tylenol PM's were beginning to kick in. She had taken them with the hope of being able to establish a regular sleeping pattern as soon as possible. With one last look at the ever growing list she had tossed onto her night stand, Lorelai finally turned out the bed side lamp and snuggled down under the covers.

* * *

Rory was also making lists, though hers were all on paper. She had many more than her mother, as she had separate lists for things she needed to pick up as well as what books, DVD's and CD's she was going to bring with her. She also had a list for the miscellaneous stuff she had to pick up on her travels.

"I can't believe I wrote the date down wrong," she muttered again as she scanned over the letter from Yale one last time. She was now paranoid that she was going to forgot something or misread a critical piece of information.

Assuring herself that she could read the letter again several more times in the morning, Rory finally turned off her bedside lamp and slid down between the covers.

* * *

"We are never going to get it all," Rory complained as she and her mother collapsed onto a bench in the town square. The both dropped their numerous bags to the ground and Rory watched, some what mournfully, as a few of them toppled over and threatened to spill their contents on the ground.

As Lorelai began to assure Rory that they were going to get everything they needed, Rory allowed her mind to wander for a moment and take in the day they were missing. The weather was perfect and the typical New England humidity that usually settled over the area in late August wasn't present. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, perfect lake weather as far as Rory was concerned.

"Maybe we should skip Friday night dinner," Lorelai said all of a sudden. This snapped Rory back to reality and she began to remind Lorelai that she had to go, this was why she got to go to Yale. At the end of her little speech, she announced that Lorelai wasn't obligated to go. After a moment of gloating about this fact, Lorelai laid out a new plan.

Rory would go to dinner, she'd eat really fast then pack up Charlie and head home. Once the pair returned home, the three of them would finish up what ever was left to do.

"Come on," Lorelai said quickly, gathering up her bags before she stood. Rory groaned, but quickly gathered her bags as well and followed her mother. "We'll drop this stuff off and you can shower and change while I lug the car seat into your car. You go deal with dinner and bring Charlie home while I get everything, ok?" Rory gave a small sure as they trudged home as quickly as they could.

* * *

"I need to borrow your truck. Coffee please," Lorelai said quickly as she slid onto a stool at the counter of the diner. She had been running around for what felt like hours since Rory had left for Hartford and as she was driving back from the mattress store, she realised that she had absolutely no way of getting said mattress back to Stars Hollow, let along New Haven.

"And why do you need to borrow my truck?" Luke asked casually as he poured her a cup of coffee and set it in front of her. "Burger?"

"A fast one. And fries," she said as she took a sip of coffee. "I need to lug Rory's mattress home and I need something to drag all her crap to Yale in." She sighed as Luke asked her why she hadn't gotten that U-Hall she had been talking about. Lorelai quickly filled him in on the fact that Rory had written he date down wrong. They didn't have a week to get ready, Rory had to be at school on Saturday. "So, I don't have time to have the mattress delivered here, or to rent that truck or figure out how to drive it, so, I need to borrow your truck tonight and tomorrow," she told him. Luke began to avoid answering her so Lorelai quickly began pouting at Luke and when he didn't instantly give in, she started to beg him and finally moved on to guilting him because, after all, what would happen to Rory if they were late to her orientation or if they missed it?

"Fine," he said with a sigh. "I'll bring it over later."

"Great," she said with a smile. He shook his head and leaned on the counter a little. "So, cheese burger?" she prompted.

"Oh, right," he said as he quickly pushed away from the counter and headed to the kitchen. Lorelai couldn't help but shake her head as she watched him hurry off. She glanced around the diner and after noticing how empty everything was, she considered bringing up the topic of his cruise with Nicole. As a smile grew on her face and she opened her mouth to speak, she reconsidered when she realised that this would be the kind of thing that Luke would with hold his truck over. With a resigned sigh, she kicked her bags a little further under the counter before she pulled her crumpled list out of her purse so she could take stock of what she was now in possession of as well as what she still needed to pick up.

* * *

"Where's Rory?" Luke asked as he and Lorelai continued to lug boxes and garbage bags full of Rory's things outside. Lorelai rolled her eyes and quickly began to fill Luke in on the arrangement that she and Rory had made in order to get everything they needed to do done. He shook his head as Lorelai came to the end of her tale about Rory being in Hartford for diner and to rescue Charlie.

As they finished lugging the bags and boxes out of the house and started to load them into the back of Luke's pick up truck, the conversation began to dwindle. Finally, as a last ditch effort to keep the conversation going and to try and get a straight answer out of Luke, she brought up the subject of the cruise again.

"Did something happen with you and Nicole?" she finally asked, a smile on her face. He hesitated for the briefest second before he started to re-arrange the boxes again.  
"I don't know," he answered after a long pause. Lorelai, slightly taken aback by his answer, stopped arranging the boxes and simply stopped to look at him.

"How can you not know?" she asked him. "You were on the same boat as her, right? Might I even assume that the two of you shared the same room on said boat? The same bed?" she quizzed him. Luke assured her that all of this was fact.

"She just, I dunno," he said with a sigh and shrug. "I think you and Rory were right, I think she was expecting me to propose or something," he finally said as he too stopped moving bags and boxes around. Lorelai watched as she jumped out of the back of the truck. "Things were fine on the boat at first, but as time went on, and things came to an end, she seemed to be getting more and more. . . "

"Sea sick?" Lorelai supplied as she leaned against the truck.

"Distant," Luke finally filled in. The grin fell off of Lorelai's face when she saw the sad look that had come over Luke's. "I thought things were going well, I thought we were having a good time and every time I asked her what was wrong, she kept saying nothing was wrong." Lorelai opened her mouth to reply, but Luke forged ahead. "I'm not a very smart man, but I'm smart enough to know when something's wrong. Why wouldn't she just tell me? Why do all women lie about nothing being wrong when something is obviously wrong and then get mad at us when we can't read their minds?" he ranted as he angrily stalked off to grab the last few bags and throw them into the truck. Lorelai cringed a little at the rough treatment of Rory's things, but was glad she had decided to pack the breakables in boxes and the large plastic bins.

"Luke," Lorelai said soothingly, putting a hand on his arm to stop him. "You need to talk to her," she said, forcing him to stop and look at her. "You need to sit down with her and the two of you need to decide if you're in the same place in this relationship or not."

"And she'll answer me?" he asked. Lorelai chuckled and assured him that she would, that she might even been impressed that he was the one taking the steps to try and fix the tension in the relationship. "Hmm, I guess," he agreed after a moment. The pair fell into a comfortable silence for a moment before there was a rustling in the trees. The pair turned, Luke stepping slightly in front of Lorelai, and watched as Kirk wandered out of the brush.

"Bad wind," he muttered as he walked by in the sky diving gear Lorelai had previously tried to talk him out of. "Bad, bad wind," he muttered, dragging his parachute along behind him. The pair both watched as Kirk slowly walked by, muttering to himself about Taylor and the wind before they both started to chuckle. As they finally began to calm down, Lorelai's cell phone began to ring.

"I have to go," she told Luke quickly after she and Rory had hung up. "My mother is holding my kids hostage and I have to go and rescue them," she explained as she dug her keys out of her bag. Luke assured her that he'd finish up the last remaining details before heading home and Lorelai thanked him one last time for the use of his truck. She assured him, once again, that she could indeed drive the stick and that everything would be fine. Luke rolled his eyes at this, but Lorelai simply flashed a large smile before she jogged across the yard and jumped into her jeep.

* * *

Lorelai had to keep herself from speeding on the way to Hartford. At first, she was simply excited to see Charlie after a long summer apart, but as she ran into a bit of traffic and had to slow down, her mind began to wander back to what Luke had told her. She wondered a little if it was her fault, hers and Rory's, for teasing him about the cruise saying commitment, but he hadn't said anything and she knew that if he felt that way, Luke would have let her have an ear full.

As traffic ground to a halt, she began to wonder why he had spent so much time avoiding people and ducking their questions about his time on the cruise. If Luke had gone and gotten engaged on the cruise, she could maybe see him doing something like that. Maybe Nicole would ask him to keep it a secret until she could get a hold of her parents, but if they were still dating and possibly breaking up?

"It doesn't make any sense," Lorelai muttered to herself as traffic started to move again. "But when has that man ever made any sense?" With a final sigh, Lorelai flipped on the radio and tried to push all thoughts of Luke and Nicole out of her mind.

* * *

Rory allowed her eyes to slowly crawl around the opulently decorated den as her grandmother prattled on and on about the rules and regulations of ball room dancing. Like the rest of the house, the den was decorated in light rose, cream and tan with an occasional touch of gold to accent things. Eventually, her eyes came to rest on her sister who was dividing her attention between the dancers and the toy in front of her. Just as she was starting to think about sliding down onto the floor to play with Charlie, her attention was drawn to the door of the room

"Hey!" Lorelai said brightly as she slipped into the den. "Hey baby!" she said, a little softer as she crouched down to greet Charlie. The little girl looked up from her toy and immediately her face broke into a smile. She picked herself up off the ground and threw herself into her mothers arms as quickly as possible, burying her head in the crook of Lorelai's neck.

"Mom, hi!" Rory said, as she perked up immediately, pulling herself out of the slouch she had fallen into. Unlike the rest of her girls, Emily was not happy to see Lorelai. Her mouth fell into a tight line as she glared at her daughter.

"Hi mom," Lorelai said as she finally stood up, Charlie still in her arms.

"What are you doing here?" Emily demanded as she sat a little closer to the edge of the couch. Lorelai quickly plastered a smile on her face, shifted Charlie a little higher up on her hip and told Emily that she had been in the neighbourhood and had wondered what was going on at the Gilmore house. Rory quickly filled in the details and when Lorelai tried to invite herself in on the fun, Emily jumped up and began making excuses about why she couldn't. As she started to realised that Lorelai's wasn't going to go away, she sent Rory off to find a cup of tea. As soon as the door closed behind the teenager, Emily started in on Lorelai, about how she was here to kidnap the girls and take them home. Lorelai gritted her teeth and dug her heels in, countering that this was their last night as a family, their last night before Rory went off to college, but Emily didn't care.

"And you've had Charlie all summer!" Lorelai continued. "Why are you keeping them from me?"  
"If Rory wants to leave, she can leave," Emily replied calmly with a shrug. "She's not a four year old." Lorelai shook her head at her mother.

"And what about Charlie? Are you going to keep her here until she can ask to go home?" she fired back. "Tonight is my last night with Rory, it's out last night together!" she yelled, rubbing Charlie's back as the toddler started to get agitated. "I have less than 12 hours to remind Charlie that she belongs to me and Rory, not you and dad!"

"I know that!" Emily insisted as she came slightly closer to Lorelai. "That's why I was so surprised you didn't want to spend the evening with them," Emily said, regaining her composure as she watched Lorelai flounder a little.

"I did want to!" she yelled at her mother before Emily countered that she should have come. "I couldn't!" Lorelai cried, sounding nearly desperate.

"You wouldn't!" Emily countered, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned slightly away from Lorelai and Charlie.

"Arg! I swear to God!" Lorelai complained as she buried her face in her free hand for a moment. A heavy silence, broken only by the clock in the room fell over the trio as they all calmed down. Finally, Lorelai dropped her hand and raised her head before dropping a kiss on the top of Charlie's head as she looked around the room. "Where's dad?" she asked when she realized he wasn't there.

"Oh, he went to bed hours ago," Emily said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she looked every where but at Lorelai. She thought about this for a moment.

"He went to bed?" Lorelai asked, a small smile tugging at her lips. She had no idea why she found this funny, but she did. She tried not to snicker as Emily said that it was getting late, but she sound found that she was failing miserably. Eventually, she found herself laughing hysterically at absolutely nothing. Rory came in not long after and Lorelai's feeble attempts at explaining what was going on only succeeded in confusing Emily further and dragging Rory into the hysterics.

"As soon as you're both done. . . " Emily said sarcastically with an eye roll as she relieved her cup of tea from her granddaughter. She took a cautious sip of the hot liquid before she carefully made her way to a chair and took a seat.

* * *

"So, tomorrow," Rory said softly. She, her mother and Charlie had taken up court on the couch while Emily had stayed in the chair. The 4 of them seemed to be spending the night watching ballroom dancing and now that she had someone to mock with, Rory decided that it wasn't so bad. Lorelai let her head casually roll to the side to look at her eldest.

"Yeah, tomorrow," she replied as she let her hand drag lazily up and down Charlie's back. The toddler had fallen asleep on Lorelai somewhere between the '87 and '88 championships.

"It's a big day," was all Rory could say as she rolled her head back towards the TV. She didn't trust herself to look at her mother right now. She was tired, her nerves were frayed and the last thing she wanted to do was burst into tears, she couldn't handle that right now.

"It's a really big day," Lorelai agreed as she kept her glance on Rory. She was having a hard time believing that Rory was old enough for college.

"I just hope it's everything I've been imagining it to be," Rory said with a wistful sigh as she sucked some biscotti out of her teeth.

"Yeah," she said casually, finally turning her attention back to the TV. "I just hope you actually get there." Rory glanced at her mother slightly, just to see if she was actually kidding or not before she nudged Lorelai and they both glanced over at Emily who was slumped over in her chair, sound asleep. The pair shared a smile and a quiet chuckle before they turned back to the TV. "You know," Lorelai said after a moment. "If Sofia could just die during a fox trot, that would be perfect." Rory and Lorelai shared a snicker over this but made no moves to get up from the couch, having finally molded the pillows to fit them perfectly. The pair heaved a small sigh at the same time, both knowing that when they did finally get up off that couch, they'd have to go home and go to bed and that would mean that tomorrow was here.

"Biscotti?" Rory asked, pulling the last two pieces out of the bag and offering Lorelai her pick. Lorelai agreed enthusiastically and accepted a piece, frowning slightly when she saw that it was only a half piece. She quickly remarked that it was broken before she looked in the bag to see if there were any others that weren't broken. She was slightly disappointed to see that there weren't.

"I know, I like 'em that way," Rory quipped quietly. She smiled as she and her mother tried to fit their pieces together briefly before they gave up and started to eat. Lorelai quickly cast one more glance over at Rory before she shifted down on the couch and Rory did the same, allowing the pair to snuggle just a little closer as they went back to mocking the ballroom dancers that were still gliding around the floor on the television screen.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm back. I know, I know, four months.Editing has been taking longer than expected.

I also had a few complaints that the first ep was too much like the ep. Well, that happens, mostly because the first ep is so important to the set up. It's hard to cut and insert new material in. Especially when the original episode is well written.

* * *

As the last video came to an end, Emily finally woke up, mostly because her neck and back were now sore from having fallen asleep in the chair. She looked over at her girls, not entirely surprised to see that while Charlie was sound asleep, Lorelai and Rory was still awake and talking quietly. The pair flopped their heads over to the side to look at Emily when she moved and she quietly invited the trio to spend the night. The girls considered it for a moment before they declined. Rory finally explained how she had written her orientation date down wrong and that they still had things to do at home. Emily nodded and gave Rory a tight hug, wishing her good luck as Lorelai headed off to gather Charlie's suitcase from her room.

"Ready kiddo?" Lorelai asked quietly when she saw Rory and Emily standing at the bottom of the stairs. She nodded and Lorelai quickly thanked her mother for watching Charlie over the summer. With a promise that she would fill them in on what she thought of Europe next week, Lorelai, Charlie and Rory finally left the Gilmore mansion and piled into their respective cars and headed home. As she drove towards Stars Hollow, Lorelai's mind began running over Rory's supply list again. She was positive that she had finished buying everything on Rory's list and that she and Luke had packed it all and loaded it into the back of his truck. She was also sure that they were going to get to Yale on time and get Rory moved in without too much trouble, but that feeling of apprehension about leaving Rory in New Haven was setting in again. The longest she had ever really been away from her eldest before was when she would stay over night at Lane's. She had also never been as far away from Rory as she was going to be once she moved to New Haven.

The rest of the drive back to Stars Hollow was quiet. Lorelai watched as Rory pulled into the driveway and hoped out, opening the back door to pull out Charlie's bag. Lorelai quickly joined her and liberated Charlie from her car seat.

"Grab Charlotte," she whispered to Rory, nodding towards the little grey spider that had fallen to the floor. Rory quickly grabbed it and locked the door behind Lorelai before they all headed towards the house. After a quick kiss goodnight and some last minute plan finalizing, Rory headed off to bed and Lorelai watched her go. Slowly, Lorelai dragged herself and Charlie upstairs, she very nearly allowed herself to simply curl up round Charlie, but changed her mind at the last minute and tucked the toddler away in her own bed, making sure that Charlotte, her constant companion, was beside her and she was tucked in safely under her favourite blanket. With one last, long glance at the baby, she eventually headed to her own bed, pausing only to change into pyjamas before collapsing.

* * *

Morning, unfortunately, came far to fast for the Gilmore Girls. Lorelai laid awake a while before her alarm, basking in the sunshine that was streaming through the window as she tried to get herself ready to face the day.

Her baby, her precious baby girl, was moving away to college, she was abandoning Charlie again and she and Sookie were going to get moving on opening their Inn.

As she continued to try and come up with ways to either delay Rory's growing up or invent a universal rewind button, Charlie began to wake up. The toddler sat up slowly, rubbing at an eye as she took in her surroundings and tried to remember where she was. Eventually, mother and daughter locked eyes.

"Hi momma," Charlie said softly as she spied Lorelai through the bars of her crib. Satisfied that her mother had seen she was awake, Charlie began to rummage around her crib, searching for Charlotte in amongst the blankets.

"Hey baby," Lorelai replied with a small smile. "Let's go wake up Rory," she said as she finally pulled herself out of bed and headed to the crib. Charlie nodded vigorously and quickly stood up, arms stretched above her head, Charlotte held tightly in one hand.

* * *

After waking Rory and a quick cup of coffee and a glass of juice, Rory started to pack the last of her things while Lorelai got Charlie set for her day with Sookie.

"Don't run off to Yale without me!" Lorelai called as she carried Charlie out the door, her bag slung over her shoulder. Rory gave a chuckled and called out that she'd still be in the house when Lorelai got back.

As the house fell silent, Rory took stock of the mess in the living room. She gave a little sigh as she looked at her life, packed away into boxes, Hefty bags and suitcases before she returned to her bedroom to grab the rest of her things. Rory couldn't help but pause again as she looked at her room, stripped almost bare of all her personal touches. She smiled a little as she thought about how she had made moving Charlie a little easier without even trying. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as she felt a wave of homesickness well up inside of her. This was the first time that the age difference between her and her sister had ever really hit her.

Charlie was going to grow up with out her around. Rory was going to be nothing more than someone who visited on the weekends and school breaks and she wasn't really sure how she felt about that. Could she really still be a sister without being around full time? Rory allowed herself to dwell on the feeling of homesickness and the question of what really made her a sister for a moment before she gave her head a shake and pushed the thoughts away. She couldn't help but think how ridiculous it was to be homesick before she had even left home or the fact that she was questioning her role in Charlie's life.

With one last shake of her head, she finally went back to packing, making sure to pack Wilbur, her stuffed pig. If she couldn't be close physically to Charlie, she could be close in spirit.

* * *

Leaving Charlie with Sookie for the day was definitely harder on Lorelai than it was on Charlie. After some initial hesitation, Sookie lured the little girl away from her mother with the promise of cookie dough to play with. After a few more goodbyes, Lorelai finally left and headed home, realising on the way that she needed to find her camera so she could capture this historic Gilmore moment. With a ghost of a smile on her face, Lorelai picked up her pace slightly, trying to remember where, exactly, she had put Digital Dan after the last time she had used him. She made a detour as soon as she saw Rory's car and remembered that Charlie's seat was still in the back. She quickly opened the door and wrestled the car seat out of the back of the car and carried it up to the back porch before heading inside.

"Lucy! I'm home!" she called out as she jogged upstairs. As she searched her room for the camera, she tried to concentrate on what Rory was complaining about. "I heard Copper and Boom!" she called down as she pulled her head out of the closet.

"Never mind!" Rory yelled back. Lorelai shrugged to herself before she started digging through one last box. She smiled and let out a little cry of triumph as she finally located the camera.

As it turned out, finding the camera was the easy part. With all of Rory's things in garbage bags and boxes, every picture Lorelai took left Rory looking like she was simply taking out the trash. Eventually, with one last argument about Pat Summeral for old time's sake, Rory finally managed to push her mother out the door and get the last of her things stowed away in the back seat of her car.

"What are you doing?" Rory called out her window after her mother had backed Luke's truck out of their drive way, but didn't start heading for the diner.

"It won't go!" Lorelai lamented as she struggled with Luke's stick shift a little more.

"What won't go?" Rory asked, unplugging her seat belt and putting her car in park so she could lean out the window.

"The stick shift!" she lamented as she gave it one last shove. "Never mind, you go first!" Rory took a look behind her, making a plan as to how she was going to get around the large truck. She eventually manoeuvred her car out of the drive way and as she came to a stop at the corner, she couldn't help but pause, eyebrows climbing up as she watched her mother begin to back the truck towards the corner. Rory watched the performance for a few more moments before she shook her head and headed towards Luke, already planning out how she was going to warn him about what his beloved truck was going through.

* * *

Lorelai cursed her luck as she slowly backed the truck into town. She muttered under her breath about what a piece of crap, woman hating truck Luke had for a while. As she snarked bitterly to herself, she began to realise that she shouldn't be surprised by this, mostly because it was Luke's truck and when she thought about it, it was really just acting like he did.

Luke, and his truck apparently, both liked things to be done a certain way and both were going to take more than a little sweet talk, eyelash batting and persuasion before they did what was asked of them. Unfortunately or Lorelai, no amount of cajoling was going to make this truck bend to her will.

"Lorelai!" she heard. She turned slightly and saw Luke rushing towards her. Finally.

"Thank God!" she said as she continued slowly backing the large truck towards the dinner. Luke shook his head a little as he barked orders at Lorelai. Sure, Rory had told him that Lorelai had been backing his truck here, but he hadn't really believed her until he had seen it with his own eyes. Finally, she threw the truck into park and slid out before he jumped in, put a little muscle into the shifter and moved it to drive, pulling it up and parking it. He shook his head as he slid out of the cab and listened to Lorelai complain about his truck before he ushered her into the dinner, hoping to shut her up with an offer of coffee before he said good bye to Rory and wished her luck. 

He quickly realised that Rory and Caesar had taken care of the food order so he caught Lorelai's attention once more and showed her the shifting diagram. Rolling his eyes as she cut him off with her little quips, he finally got everything explained to her.

"I know Luke!" she assured him with a smile as she grabbed the piece of paper from his hand. "Really, I can handle it," she assured him. The pair locked eyes for a moment.

"I hope so," he muttered as he shifted his attention to the kitchen. He was just about to ask Caesar about their order when he appeared, handing Rory a large bag. He tried to keep the grimace off his face when he listened to Rory describe her "Yale Special Breakfast." With a shake of his head, he bid Rory good luck and the pair good bye as they finally headed for the door. "Nicole?" he asked when he saw the tall blonde slip in the door.

"Nicole?" Lorelai asked as she turned quickly to see if it was really her. "Nicole," she said quickly, slapping a smile up on her face. "Hi," she finished lamely.

"Hello Lorelai," she said with a rather fake looking smile of her own. "You must be Rory," she said, looking the teenager up and down. Rory agreed and offered a small smile. A few more awkward pleasantries were exchanged before the Gilmore Girls excused themselves and slipped out the door, Lorelai casting Luke one last glance over her shoulder as they slipped out. Luke watched as Nicole watched to make sure Lorelai and Rory were gone before she wandered up the counter, a sickly sweet little smile on her face. Just as she slid onto a stool and opened her mouth to start talking, Hurricane Lorelai swept back in, holding the piece of paper Luke had given her. Both Luke and Nicole watched as Lorelai rushed over.

"Nothing's where it says it is," she whined, pouting a little as she held the paper out at him. Luke sighed and frowned a little as he took the paper from her and flipped it over. She quickly snatched it from his fingers, a smile lighting up her face as she apologised to Nicole for interrupting before she assured Luke a few more times that everything really was going to be okay.

"So," Luke said after a long moment, focusing his attention on Nicole.

"So. . . " she trailed off as she settled herself on a stool. "I was in town, dropping off some papers for Taylor and I thought I'd stop by, maybe have a cup of coffee?" The pair looked at each other for a moment before Luke turned around and grabbed a mug and the coffee pot. "Luke, I'm sorry," she said after a long moment. Luke continued to face the coffee pot as he listened to Nicole rattle off some excuse about a big case at work going south just before they left for vacation and no mater how hard she tried, she couldn't put it out of her mind. "I ruined the whole vacation."

"You didn't ruin the whole thing," he finally said, turning around. "I could have tried harder to take your mind off of things," he replied with a shrug. They each gave a small sigh.

"So, we're ok?" she asked, still slightly hesitant.

"We're ok," he replied. "Are you free Saturday night?" She agreed that she was and plans for dinner and a movie were quickly made. Satisfied that they were back in a good place, Luke offered Nicole a menu and she took it with a smile as he went back to work.

* * *

"You're late," Luke said immediately as he heard the door to the diner of open and he watched Lorelai come in. He listened as she quickly began explaining how she had been on time, early even, but then she had realised all the things she had forgotten to get Rory, so she had to head to Hartford to pick the things up and now she was just stopping in to let him know that she needed his truck a little longer.

"And a cup of coffee would definitely help things go smoother and faster," she finished with a smile as she slid onto her usual stool at the counter.

"Uh huh," he said as he grabbed a large to-go cup and filled it up.

"Oh, by the way," she started, pausing until she had her beloved coffee in her hands. "That's mine," she pointed out to Luke when he didn't hand over the cup.

"What happened?" he asked automatically. Lorelai fidgeted under his gaze a little and Luke quickly began jumping to conclusions. "You wrecked my truck, didn't you?" he asked.

"I certainly did not!" she insisted as she started to lean over the counter in an attempt to grab the cup of coffee from him. "It's around the corner. Gimme!"

"You wrecked it," he said as he rushed out from behind the counter and headed for the door. Lorelai rolled her eyes and called out after him before she jumped off of her stool and headed after him. "Why is it still running?" he asked as he finally handed her the cup before he reached in through the window to turn it off. Lorelai immediately began making excuses about how it was the trucks fault she couldn't turn it off.

After the issue of the trucks ignition was resolved, conversation immediately moved to the fact that Rory's germ infested Yale mattress was in the back of the truck. The pair quickly fell into a very circular argument about who was going to deal with the mattress.

"I can't take the mattress," she said firmly, looking him hard in the eye.

"Then you can't have the truck," he replied casually with a bit of a shrug.

"And that sticks you with the mattress," she said, pointing a finger at him as a small smile formed on her face. This was her favourite kind of game to play with Luke. Luke paused to consider his options after they went through this cycle three or four times.

"We've been here before," he finally said, eying Lorelai.

"I recognize that tree," she replied, sounding just a serious as him. She crossed her arms over her chest as the pair stared each other down, trying not to be the first one to cave. "Look, I don't have all day," Lorelai finally said, gesturing with her hands. "Rory is waiting back at Yale, Sookie is entertaining Charlie and you want your truck back at some point in the near future, so, take the mattress!" she insisted.

"Not only do I not want to take the mattress, I can't take the mattress. It's not like I have a lot of spare space to store said mattress. Besides, Nicole is in the diner." This threw Lorelai for a loop.

"But I thought you two were on the rocks," she said as she followed him back to the diner.

"Well, we're not anymore," he said abruptly. Lorelai stopped dead in her tracks as she considered this. "Are you coming?" he asked as he held the door open.

"Uh, no," she abruptly. "I'll, uh I'm just gonna go and wait in the truck. Guard all the shiny new toys, ya know?" she said as she immediately began to head back to the truck before Luke even had a chance to respond. His brow furrowed as he watched her quickly retreat and he tried to figure her out for a moment before he shook his head and headed in to tell Nicole that he was going to have to take off with Lorelai, if only to save him truck from certain harm.

* * *

Rory stood out side of her dorm as she watched her mother and Luke leave. As soon as Lorelai was out of sight, she turned and headed back into her room, more than a little pleased to see that Paris and Terence, her life coach, were busy with her craft corner and Tanna was in her room. Rory quietly slipped into her room and sat down on her bed, looking around at the Hefty bags, laundry baskets and other things that were full to over flowing of her things.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to ward off the sinking feeling that was now settling over her. She blinked hard, trying to keep the tears at bay as she looked around and realised that this was it, she was officially moved out of her home. Rory Gilmore lived at Yale now. She wiped at her eyes, frustrated and angry that she was 18 and crying over the fact that she missed her home and her mother and Lane and she hadn't even been at Yale for a day yet. Rory took a steadying breath as she pulled herself up off of her bed and began putting things away again for a while, hoping that if she kept busy, she wouldn't be some homesick.

Unfortunately, in the end, she broke down and paged her mother, begging her to come back. She dropped her pager into her lap as she watched the message flash across the screen that her text had been sent.

All she had to do was wait and soon, Lorelai would swoop into her suite and make everything better.

* * *

Lorelai rolled her eyes as Luke started in on round 12 of his adventures with Chip, the kid he had bargained with so he could move the microbe mattress back into Rory's dorm. She rolled the window down the rest of the way and quickly began air surfing with her hand, trying to distract herself as Luke ranted on.

"Stop that," he said as he looked over at her.

"Stop what?" she asked as she watched her arm weaving up and down through the air.

"That with your arm," he said. She smiled at him and kept doing it. She laughed as he eventually began reaching over with his right arm to try and pull her right arm back into the cab of the truck. "Lorelai!" he barked and she finally pulled her arm in, giggling a little as she did. Luke glared at her, heaved a sigh and went back to driving. Just as Lorelai was about to play with the radio to fill the silence, Luke started ranting again.

"Thank God," Lorelai muttered as Stars Hollow finally came into view again. She wasn't all that surprised that Luke didn't hear her.

"So, Chip is like, _Set your side down first_ and I'm like, _My side's the side with the leg missing. It's gonna collapse. You put your side down first_ and he's like, _I'm losing my grip_ which was his excuse with everything we carried in . . . the TV, the stereo speakers. And I was like. . ."

"Oh my God," Lorelai said, finally snapping as they approached the diner. "Will you, like, get over this?" she asked, turning to look at him. She smiled as he looked over at her, not really understanding why she was mad about this. Just as he was about to ask, Lorelai's pager went off.

"What's that?" he asked as he parked the truck and Lorelai dug around in her purse for her pager.

"It's my pager," she said as she finally grabbed it and flipped it open. "Oh no," she said sadly as she read it. "_Come back_," she read when Luke asked her what it said.

"What?" he asked, turning the truck off as he sat back to look at Lorelai.

"It's from Rory," she said as she read it again before closing the pager and tossing it back into her purse. "It says Come Back with about a dozen exclamation points. Uh, move, move," she said as she tried to push him out of the cab while she slid over to the drivers seat.

"What are you doing?" he demanded as he pushed her back onto her own side.

"I gotta borrow your truck," she said quickly as she began shoving at him again. As Luke began to resist, Lorelai pulled out every trick she knew to make him comply. She finally guilted him into giving her the truck by asking if he cared about Rory. Luke finally capitulated and slid out of the truck, telling Lorelai to have it back by 7 and they both knew that wasn't going to happen. Luke closed the door and stepped away from the truck, watching Lorelai high tail it back to New Haven to check on Rory.

* * *

"Hey, Sookie," Lorelai said brightly as she rested against the brick of the building. She squinted a little as the early evening sun hit her in the eye as she glanced around the still bustling campus.

"Hey chicky! You on your way home?" Sookie asked brightly, smiling as she watched Charlie and Jackson tending to the garden in their back yard. She took a moment to wave a the little girl who was enthusiastically holding up a worm she and Jackson had unearthed.

"Not exactly," Lorelai said, finally turning her back on the sun. "Rory's having some trouble settling in, so I was wondering. . . " she trailed off as she chewed on her lip for a moment.

"Is Rory okay?" Sookie asked, the smile falling off of her face as a concerned look replaced it.

"She's fine. Homesick, but fine. So, I was wondering if maybe you and Jackson could keep Charlie over night, I'd stay here with Rory, get her really settled and come back tomorrow," Lorelai said hopefully. "Or, uh, if you can't, I'll ask Luke if he can keep her for the night," she said quickly when Sookie hesitated. Sookie quickly assured Lorelai that it was no trouble to keep Charlie over night and that she should just worry about getting Rory settled. Sookie also assured Lorelai that Charlie was fine. Jackson had introduced her to the garden and the pair of them were elbow deep in the dirt now, weeding, picking ripe vegetables and taking every opportunity to play with the various bugs that they found.

"Good," Lorelai said as she let a sigh of relief go. "Call me if there are any problems, day or night," Lorelai said.

"Don't worry," Sookie said firmly. "Go get Rory settled into her new nest, we'll be fine here," she assured Lorelai for a second time. She quickly grabbed the large mason jar that was sitting on the table beside her and held it out to the toddler as she watched the little girl rush over with yet another treasure that she had unearthed. The jar already held things like an old, rusted toy car, part of a magnet and a few marbles.

"You are the best," Lorelai said, a smile on her face. "The absolute best Sookie. Jackson too!"

"See you tomorrow," Sookie said as they finally hung up. She stared at her cell phone for a moment, feeling a pang of guilt for abandoning Charlie in favour of Rory, once again. She had always told herself that when she had a second kid, she was never going to choose favourites, that she was never going to place one's needs above the other. Then again, she had also planned to be married to some one rich and famous the next time she had a kid. . .

"Okay," Lorelai said to Rory as she walked back into the suite. "I am yours for the night." Rory nodded as she kept putting her books away. "Rory? What's wrong?"

"I just. . . I can't believe I made you come back here to spend the night with me when my 2 year old sister doesn't seem to have any problems staying at home by herself," Rory lamented as she slammed a few books down on a shelf a little harder than necessary.

"Rory," Lorelai said as she came to stand in front of her. "Charlie will figure it out at bed time and will cry big, huge, crocodile tears until she cries herself to sleep tonight. She is going to be far more dramatic about this than you are. But, you know what?"

"What?" she asked with a bit of a sniffle.

"I'm glad you called," she said. "All I really wanted to do the whole time we were driving back to Stars Hollow was to turn around and come back here. I think we both need this. Consider this a make up for having lost our free week. Okay?" she asked with a soft smile, reaching out to take a hold of Rory's shoulders so she could turn her daughter to face her. The pair searched each others eyes for a moment before Rory finally allowed herself to collapse into her mother's arms for a moment.

"Okay," Rory finally said as she pulled away with a nod and went back to unpacking. Lorelai watched her for a moment before she started to help.

* * *

Lorelai laid awake for a long time after Rory and Paris had finally fallen asleep. She spent a while listening to the campus quieting down for the night and worrying how Rory was going to deal with the noise while trying to study. Rory was very particular about the amount of noise around her when studying and if tonight was any indication, Rory was going to have to do some searching for the ideal study spot. As silence finally fell over the campus, her mind began to wander again, partially because the thought of sleeping on the microbe mattress was freaking her out, but mostly because the fact that tomorrow as really going to be good bye. Tomorrow, she was going to have to hug Rory and walk away from the campus before driving all the way back to Stars Hollow. She hadn't lied to Rory when she had told her that she had been happy to get her phone call. She had wanted to just turn around and drive back to Yale the moment she and Luke had left, but she hadn't. Because she was the mother and had to be mature in this situation. Fortunately, there were no rules about not coming back when your kid was begging you to.

Lorelai rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable position and once she was no longer facing Rory's bed, her thoughts drifted to Charlie. Secretly she was worried that Charlie was going to think that she belonged to everyone but her, but she knew that was silly. Lorelai hugged her pillow a little tighter as she heaved a sigh, thinking about Charlie who had probably cried herself to sleep for the nth time that summer and she felt that pang of guilt return again to stab at her insides.

In an attempt to push that thought out of her head, she turned her attention back to the events of the day and she found herself focusing on her reaction to seeing Nicole march into the diner. This puzzled her because she couldn't put her finger on why it was such a shock to see Nicole. Luke had told her that they were still together, though things were strained after the cruise and it didn't seem like he really wanted their relationship to end.

Though he did look a little shocked to see her waltz into the diner. Almost as shocked as she and Rory were to see her. This was going to take a little more thought, she decided as a large yawn nearly split her face. As she finally began to drift off, her mind started to dissect the Nicole Situation (yes, it was capitalised in her mind). Maybe the comment Sookie had made about Luke trying to sabotage his relationship with Nicole was true.

She paused on this thought for a long moment, suddenly finding herself wide awake as she began to dissect this little nugget.

"Oh my God," she gasped quietly as she realised that Luke was, on some level, trying to sabotage his relationship and she was enabling him. After living with this realisation for a moment, Lorelai moved on to a new question: was she enabling him because she didn't like Nicole or was she enabling him because, after all these years, Stars Hollow was right and she did have a thing for Luke?

With a soft groan, Lorelai flopped over onto her stomach and slapped her pillow over her head, hoping to find some relief from all the thoughts running through her head.

* * *

Lorelai swore as she missed the turn into Stars Hollow. She was still distracted and thinking about the fact that she might actually have a thing for Luke. She didn't know if it was the fact that her mother had put this together before her or if it was because she just didn't really like Nicole that she had come to this conclusion, but, either way, she had come to this conclusion and now she had to figure out what to do about this discovery. Sure, she had toyed with the idea of her and Luke together, but she had always just dismissed it as a funny little thought, usually brought on by something sweet he had done for Rory or Charlie. She rarely had this thought when he did something for her, perhaps because that was such a common occurrence. The answer should be simple, either she was starting to think of Luke as something more than a friend or she wasn't. Deciding once again that everything was just a coincidence, she put the idea out of her mind and turned her attention back to the fact that she was finally going to get to spend more than 6 hours with Charlie for the first time in nearly 3 months.

With a sigh, she finally made the turn and headed home. She quickly parked the truck, complete with mattress still in the back, and jumped out. She headed straight to Sookie's to pick up Charlie and to buy herself a little more time.

"What's wrong?" Sookie asked as she packed the last of Charlie's things into her bag. "Missing Rory?"

"Well, yeah," she said as she offered Charlie a smile. "But I've just got something on my mind." Sookie offered to lend an ear, but Lorelai shook her head. "It's nothing," she said quickly. "I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill. Say bye Charlie," Lorelai prompted.

"Bye!" Charlie said with a smile and a little wave. "Bye Dackson!" she yelled out as loudly as she could. "Werkin'," she told Lorelai seriously. Sookie assured Charlie that she'd pass the message a long to Jackson, just in case he didn't hear her all the way at the farm and with one last somewhat concerned glance at Lorelai, she bid the pair goodbye. "Wowy?" she asked as she and Lorelai headed to the diner.

"She's at Yale," Lorelai said as she lowered the little girl to the ground and took the hand that wasn't clutching Charlotte. "She's at school, remember?" she asked. Charlie furrowed her brow as she thought about this.

"Wowy seep der?" she asked as she concentrated on not stepping on any cracks in the sidewalk.

"Yeah," Lorelai assured her with a sigh as they crossed the street. "Rory's sleeping there now." Charlie mulled this over but perked up when she realised they were heading for the diner. As soon as they were in the door, Charlie wrestled her hand away from Lorelai and rushed to the counter.

"Momma! Up!" she commanded as she patted the top of one of the stools. She was quickly lifted up before Lorelai took a seat beside her, dropping Luke's keys on the counter. Charlie immediately grabbed them and started flipping through the various keys. "Dis one?" she asked, holding up a key to Lorelai.

"Ask Luke," she said quickly as she glanced around behind her, trying to locate said diner owner.

"You're late," Luke said immediately as he came out of the kitchen with plates in his hand. "Hey Charlie," he said as he rushed past her. "And the mattress is still in my truck," he said, giving Lorelai the evil eye as he leaned against the counter. She sighed and rolled her eyes before she promised to call a charity in the morning and get rid of the stupid thing. "Lunch?" he asked after a moment as he reached for Charlie's cup.

"Sure," she said as she ordered up her usual cheese burger and fries and finally convinced Luke to make Charlie one so she didn't have to share. She watched him go, the fact that he hadn't taken his keys from the toddler wasn't lost on her and she had a sinking feeling that maybe she hated Nicole for reasons other than the fact that she simply didn't like the woman.

"Duke! Dis one!" Charlie called out as he came to the counter again. Lorelai snapped back to reality as Luke began telling Charlie about his keys.

* * *

"And we're home," Lorelai muttered to herself as she threw the jeep into park. She glanced at Charlie in the rear view mirror, not surprised to see her slumped over and asleep. Lorelai had delayed coming home to the empty house as long as she could by loitering in Luke's before she and Charlie had wandered through Doose's for a few supplies and a quick trip to the video store. With a sigh, Lorelai headed to the house, unlocked the door and tossed the shopping bags just inside the door before she went back out to the jeep and pulled Charlie from her seat, grabbing the toy spider from where it had fallen beside her. Lorelai was starting to consider finding a way to attach it to one of those pacifier clips so she wouldn't have to keep looking for it. As she cradled the sleeping toddler against her chest, content to have her back again for good, she wandered into the house and paused in the living room. She looked around and listened to the silence that was almost over whelming.

She knew she wasn't really alone, that in a little more than an hour, Charlie would be up and chattering away to her about various things, but at this point in time? She really wanted to page Rory and beg her to come home.

Lorelai stood in the living room, unable to think about anything but the fact that Rory wasn't coming home until the 20 pounds of little girl in her arms started to get too heavy. With a sad sigh, she slowly began climbing the stairs.

* * *

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

"What would you think about sleeping in Rory's room?" Lorelai asked Charlie few days later. The pair were starting to fall into a comfortable routine without Rory. Charlie's head popped up from the blocks she was playing with.

"No Wowy," she said after a moment, finally turning to look at Lorelai, a red block in one hand and a blue one in the other.

"I know that," she said with a smile as she got up off the couch and convinced Charlie to follow her. "We'll move your bed down here," she said as she stood in the door frame. "We'll move the furniture around to fit you in here." She watched as her youngest looked around the room with a critical eye and considered what was being proposed of her to the best of her ability.

"No," she said firmly. "Wowy woom," she insisted as she quickly turned and left the room, heading back to the living room and her blocks. Lorelai frowned, this was going to be harder than she had anticipated, but she didn't have much choice. She had caught Charlie trying to climb out of her crib the other day and she was also starting to want to have her room all to herself again. She'd give Charlie another week to get used to the idea, or until she could get Rory home to help her re-arrange furniture. Lorelai took a moment to wonder if Charlie's response to moving into Rory's room was indicative of what her response to toilet training was going to be. Lorelai had been making out budgets and if she could get Charlie out of diapers, she'd have a little extra cash to play with. Not a real significant amount, but it was enough that it might keep her and Charlie fed for another week.

"And to think, I used to be happy with your sense of determination and stubbornness. . ." Lorelai quipped as she pushed herself off of the door frame and cast a glance at Charlie before she finished gathering up the papers she needed to take to Sookie's. "Come on Sweets, let's go and see Sookie," she said after a moment, making sure that she had tucked everything away into her bag. Charlie looked up from her blocks and frowned a little when she saw the her mother was already standing at the door.

"Wait," she said firmly as she pushed herself up off the ground and rushed over to her toy box. She quickly pulled out a little case that was in there before hurrying back to where she was playing. She quickly shoved the case full of blocks and managed to get it closed again. "Otya, go," she said as she joined Lorelai. With a shake of her head, the elder Gilmore threw the door open and watched as her toddler marched through and held tightly to the railing as she slowly descended the stair case. Realising that Charlie was heading off with out her, Lorelai quickly locked the door and hurried after the little girl, grabbing her hand as they made their way into to town.

* * *

"You would not, in a million years, believe what Sookie signed us up for," Lorelai proclaimed to the diner as she and Charlie strode in. Luke and the small pre-dinner crowd turned to look at the pair. "Well?" she asked Luke as she heaved Charlie up into her chair.

"Oh, you really wanted me to guess," he said, sounding more than a little disinterested as he came over with a mug of coffee for her and some juice for Charlie. "Sorry," he said when he saw the look on Lorelai's face.

"She signed us up to cater Aaron Thompson's Lord of the Rings birthday party next week without telling me." Luke blinked at her and commented that she didn't cook. She quickly corrected him, saying that Sookie would be cooking and she was going to have to get costumes, props, decorations and the movies together.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Luke commented with a bit of a shrug. "Don't you love doing things like that?"

"Well, yeah. But I usually have more than a week to get stuff like this together. Hey, could you," she started. Luke cut her off, saying that he had plans and that there was no way he could work Charlie into them. She arched an eyebrow and sent him a look.

"You spend way too much time here to be able to spring babysitting on me any more," he said calmly. "Order?"

"I didn't mean tonight," she assured him before saying that they weren't going to order and leaning over to pick up the sippy cup Charlie had knocked to the ground. She put it back on the table and took one more sip of coffee before she pulled Charlie into her arms and pushed away from the table. "I now, apparently, have stuff I need to pick up."

"What do you mean not tonight?," he called out after them as he watched Lorelai and Charlie quickly breeze out of the diner.

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on," Lorelai called to Charlie as she rushed the little girl into the house. "We're late," she said as they got into the house. As Charlie sighed in frustration at her mother, Lorelai raced through the house, grabbing the phone, some plates, napkins and a cup for Charlie before she rushed back into the living room and plopped down on the couch just as the phone rang.

"They burnt our fries, forgot to give me an extra side of barbecue sauce, the jeep is making that crunchy sound again, Charlie refuses to even consider giving up diapers and I have to spend my evening making elf ears for Aaron Thompson's Lord of the Rings party," she said quickly as she handed Charlie some fries.

"Grandma broke into my dorm and redid the entire common room in $25 000 worth of furniture and stereo equipment," Rory lamented as she picked at her dinner.

"You win," Lorelai sighed as she poured some of the soda into Charlie's cup and listened to Rory lament about the room and not knowing what to do about the whole situation. Lorelai smirked a little as Rory started to lay out a plan about how she was going to break things to her grandmother. Lorelai quickly spilled out the down side to Rory telling Emily that she couldn't keep the furniture, including the guilt trip she was going to get.

"Or I could keep the furniture," Rory sighed in defeat.

"Yes, you could," Lorelai said confidently before she jerked forward and saved her soda from hitting the floor when Charlie grabbed for it.

"This is great," Rory lamented as she tossed her chip back into the take out container. She had suddenly lost her appetite.

"Hon, seriously, if you feel strongly, say something. I just want you to be prepared, that's all," Lorelai said as she hung on to the cup so Charlie could get her fill because apparently, the soda in Charlie's cup just wasn't good enough.

"I know."

"And take heart in knowing that when it comes to controlling a person, my mother targeted my soul, my independence, and my entire future, and at least with you, she threw in an ottoman," Lorelai offered with a shrug as she dug her burger and Charlie's chicken fingers out of the take out bag. The smile on Lorelai's face grew a little larger as she listened to Rory sigh again before the subject was changed.

* * *

"Leave the horn the bow and the bill," Lorelai told Lane with a sympathetic smile. With a sigh, the teenager gathered up the cape and slowly left the house, the weight of having to go to an Adventist college sitting heavily on her. Lorelai and Sookie both watched as Lane headed out of the house. "Charlie, what are you doing?" Lorelai called out after she had finished checking over her list of supplies again. The toddler had been far to quiet for far too long.

"Books! Lotsa books!" Charlie called back from the living room.

"My mother bought her a box of books this summer and they only managed to read 12 of them. That box must have held 200 books," she said with a shake of her head. "How on earth did they only manage to read 12?"

"Lots of social events?" Sookie asked. She knew that Lorelai came from a rich family, but she was just now starting to realise exactly how rich is rich. All Lorelai could do was shake her head again before she began lamenting about finding a cheep sitter for the party. Sookie asked about Heather, but Lorelai quickly explained that they were officially on a budget and Heather had been budgeted in for a certain amount of hours a week with little to no lee-way.

"What about Jackson?" Lorelai asked hopefully. "They seemed to get along last time."  
"Sure," Sookie said brightly. "As long as he doesn't have to do any actual work. . . "

"Really?" Sookie nodded before explaining that Jackson was all for playing with her, but really wasn't down with the bathing, diaper changing and feeding aspects.

"Something about her not being his, I think." Lorelai chuckled and couldn't help but add that Luke had used the same excuse in the beginning.

"I need to get out and meet more people. I'm running out of ways to just surprise Luke and get away with it. He actually managed to say no to me the other night." Sookie put down her pen to stare at Lorelai. "Of course, it was a pre-emptive no and I had left before he realised that I had said I wasn't asking about that night in particular." The pair shared a laugh over this that was interrupted by Charlie, demanding to be read to and not taking no for an answer. Sookie took this as an opportunity to gather her things and head home to start cooking. "Alright my little book worm, let's start in on those books," Lorelai said with a smile as she watched Charlie turn and race back out to the kitchen before she got up and followed, leaving all the Lord of the Rings paraphernalia she had assembled in the kitchen.

* * *

As the party she and Sookie were supposed to cater grew closer and closer, Lorelai still hadn't nailed down a sitter for Charlie. In a last ditch effort, she was trying to lure Rory home from Yale for the night. Unfortunately, it wasn't going well.

"Come on Rory, you miss your sister, don't you?"

"Of course I do," she said, finally looking up from the text book she was reading. "But I have a lot of work to do. A lot of readings and some notes to finalise," Rory explained.

"And you can't do that here?" Lorelai asked.

"Why don't you ask Grandma and Grandpa to take her over night? They love having her over," Rory suggested, trying to bring the conversation to an end so she could get back to work. Lorelai quickly vetoed that idea. She quickly launched into how they'd had her all summer and Lorelai felt absolutely no need to send her back to them any sooner than necessary. "Well, maybe they'll come here," Rory tried again but held in a sigh when her mother made up yet another excuse about Saturday afternoon being DAR time. "So, what are you going to do with her then? Bring her with you?"

"Maybe," Lorelai said quietly. Rory rolled her eyes on the other end of the phone.

"Well, you've obviously got a lot to figure out, so I think I'm gonna let you get to that."

"Come on Rory," Lorelai started. Rory bowed out of the conversation a second time and the girls eventually hung up and Lorelai was the one who rolled her eyes this time as she tossed the phone onto the couch beside her. Charlie and Lorelai locked eyes for a moment before Charlie shifted her glance to the phone.

"Wowy?" she asked, pointing a finger to the phone.

"Yeah, that was Rory." Charlie pushed herself up off the floor, Charlotte in one hand, and wandered over, asking if Rory was coming home. Her face fell a little when Lorelai said she wasn't but the little girl perked up soon enough when Lorelai announced that it was time for a bath. With a little squeal and a smile, Charlie quickly headed upstairs, Lorelai on her heels. Eventually, as bath time drew to a close, Lorelai sat back and let her mind wander as Charlie continued to splash away. Inevitably, her mind wandered to places that she didn't want it to and she found herself thinking about Luke and the playpen he kept stashed away in his closet and, eventually, she came back to him and Nicole and what this was doing to his relationship.

As she pulled a less than happy Charlie from the tub and wrapped her tightly in a towel, she decided that this was the last time she was going to leave Charlie with Luke, even if it meant that she was going to have to get her parents more involved in her life and Charlie's.

* * *

Luke frowned a little as he watched Lorelai dash out of the diner and off to some kids birthday party before he shifted his gaze to the toddler who was watching the controlled chaos of the lunch rush from her high chair near the back of the diner. Luke's frown deepened when he saw Patty come into the diner and notice the little girl just before she took a seat. She changed her mind and headed to Charlie, interrupting her people watching and Luke got the sinking feeling that what could have been a fairly peaceful afternoon was going to become rather loud in a few moments. Fortunately for Luke, Patty disappeared soon after she had arrived, only really having time to stop in for a cup of coffee and a muffin before she had to get back to teaching the next wave of little ballerinas.

"How about some lunch?" he offered after Patty had left. Charlie watched him as he handed her her juice cup before looking around the diner at what other people were having.

"Dat?" she asked, pointing to Kirk's half eaten club sandwich. She continued to point as she looked up at him.

"I would love to know where you get your food choices from," he said with a shake of his head. While he couldn't talk Lorelai or Rory into a club sandwich on the best of days, Charlie regularly picked the healthier alternatives on the menu.

"Luke?" Charlie called out, just before he got out of ear shot. "Does too," she said, pointing at a plate of fries as it passed by.

"Let there never be any doubt who your mother is," he muttered as he headed to the kitchen.

* * *

As the dinner rush died down and Charlie ran out of people to watch, Luke began to wonder exactly how long a kids birthday party could go on. Grudgingly, he let Charlie out of her chair and gave her free reign of the nearly empty diner, ignoring Kirk's offers to take the little girl off of his hands while he wiped down the tables. Charlie followed Luke for a while, watching him carefully as he moved from table to table, clearing plates before he cleaned the table top.

"Me too?" she asked after a few more tables.

"You can't even see the top of the table," he commented as he kept going. The little girl frowned, she didn't often hear a flat out no.  
"Me too! Me too!" she said again, bouncing a little as she tried to convey how urgent her want to help was. With a heavy sigh, Luke looked down at the little girl before he dropped his cloth into her hands and went to find another. As he started on one of the last tables he had to clean, he glanced over at Charlie and couldn't help but smile as she studiously worked on making sure the chairs were clean enough to sit on. As he finally shook himself out of his observations and got back to cleaning, the bells above the door jingled and he looked up, hoping that it was Lorelai.

"Hey Luke," Nicole said with a smile as she slipped in.

"Hey," he replied some what absently. Luke was more than a little shocked to see her again so soon because Stars Hollow was more than a little out of Nicole's way.

"Who's your friend?" she asked when she saw Charlie peaking around a chair at her.

"You know Charlie," he said as he fidgeted with the cloth in his hand for a moment.

"Right, of course," she said, sounding less than pleased as she watched the little girl hurry over as Luke tossed the cloth onto a table before he swept her up into his arms. Nicole watched as Charlie kept an eye on her, but quickly began to try convince Luke to head upstairs and find something to do. Eventually, having had enough complaining, Luke called out to Caesar that they were heading upstairs and ushered the girls upstairs.

"Uh, just give me a minute," he said as he put Charlie down and pulled out a cardboard box from the closet. "Here," he said to Charlie as she wandered over to see what he had pulled out. Satisfied that she was distracted, Luke moved on to his other guest who was taking in the disaster area that was his apartment.

"Well," Nicole said as she took a seat at the kitchen table while Luke put the kettle on for tea. "I was going to see if you wanted to catch a last minute movie, but you seem to already have plans for the evening."

"Oh, yeah. Lorelai and a friend of hers are catering some kind of party and she couldn't find a sitter."

"So you volunteered," she filled in. Luke was tempted to make a sarcastic comment, but decided against it.

"Uh, yeah, I volunteered," he said as he found cups and searched through the cupboard for the sugar bowl. "She should be back soon, I mean, how long can a kids party last?" he asked rhetorically with a snicker that Nicole returned, somewhat awkwardly.

"Well, I'm glad that the redecorating isn't permanent," she said as she moved Charlie's bag from on top of the table to the chair beside her before she pushed some of the other paraphernalia on the table to the side. Before glancing around at the other toddler items that were strewn around the apartment. Luke took a moment to glance around his place as well and suddenly had a feeling that he should be very glad he hadn't pulled out the playpen to stash Charlie in. Having a box of toys in your closet was one thing, but having a playpen when you don't have a kid of your own is a completely different story. As the water finished boiling and Luke brought the cups to the table, Charlie looked up from the box that she was pulling things out of. She stared at the wooden block in her hand for a moment.

"Luke! Dis?" she asked holding it up. Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out how this could be a block too when all her blocks at home were coloured and plastic. She stared at the block again for a moment before she dropped it to the floor and went looking for something else to play with.

* * *

"What I wouldn't give for a stiff shot of tequila right about now," Lorelai muttered as she dumped the bags of jimmy's and other candies into bowls while Sookie and her kitchen staff moved the store bought food from box to oven to plate and finally to the kids. She took a moment to assure Sookie that all was forgotten and that it wasn't a big deal.

"Why don't you head home," Sookie finally suggested as the last of the food was served to the kids.

"We still have to clean up," Lorelai replied as she finished arranging the cupcakes on a plate. Sookie assured her that she and her boys would have it covered.

"We can have the kitchen cleaned up by the time they're done eating and have the rest mostly cleaned up before the kids have even headed home," Sookie finished as she and Lorelai locked eyes. Lorelai considered her options for a long moment before she finally agreed. She returned a small smile as she gathered up her things and handed Sookie the papers she had in her bag detailing their hours of work and what they should be paid. After a quick explanation to Sookie about things and insisting that she call her if there were any more problems, Lorelai packed up and headed to Luke's to pick up Charlie.

"Oh my God, you would not believe what happened at the party," Lorelai exclaimed as she dashed into the diner. "Where's Luke?" she asked Caesar. He nodded up the stairs and after thanking him, she dashed up the stairs. "Oh my God, you would not believe what happened at the party," she exclaimed again. "Sookie made all this adult food and green mac and cheese and a huge rum raisin cake and Nicole," she stopped in her tracks when she noticed the blonde and Luke sitting at the kitchen table. "You should have told me you had plans," Lorelai said as she headed over to where Charlie was sitting on the floor to start cleaning up the toys around her.

"I was a surprise," Nicole said as she grabbed Charlie's bag and headed over to Lorelai.

"Ah," she said with a bit of a smile as she tossed the rest of the blocks into the box. "Well, kind of like Charlie. Thanks," she said, accepting the bag from Charlie. "You ready Sweets?"

"No," Charlie replied as she got up and headed over to the coffee table where a few of her books were still sitting. Lorelai didn't give her a chance to get over to them before she had scooped the little girl up into her arms and headed for the door.

"Thanks again Luke," she said quickly, raising her voice to be heard over the tantrum Charlie was starting to throw. "Nice to see you again Nicole," she added with a bit of a smile as she slipped out of the door, her bag and Charlie's starting to slide down her arm. "Sabotage," she muttered to herself as she headed down the stairs to her jeep.

* * *

After finally settling Charlie down on the living room floor with Charlotte, a snack and a stack of books taller than she was, Lorelai had a spare moment to grab the phone and quickly dial Rory's number.

"Nicole is back," she said as soon as she heard Rory breathing on the other end.

"I know," Rory said. "You told me about her and Luke still being together."

"No, Nicole is back, back," she said again, trying to convey how serious the situation was.

"What do you mean back, back?" she asked as she put down her pen and sat back from her desk and the piles of work that were spread out in front of her. She listened, almost in disbelieve as Lorelai rambled through a brief summary of the disaster that was the Lord of the Rings party before she got into the nitty gritty of the situation.

"So, I stroll," Rory cut her off and Lorelai could hear the smile on her face.

"Stroll?" Lorelai ignored her and kept going.

"So I stroll into Luke's and up to his apartment and there's him and Nicole at the kitchen table, talking and laughing over tea while Charlie tries to figure out how wooden blocks compare to her plastic ones." Lorelai waited as the line fell silent, she knew that Rory was digesting this and, right on cue, she asked what they were talking about. "No real idea, they both dropped silent and quickly began gathering up Charlie's things to usher me out."

"You sound stressed," Rory said after a moment.

"I do not," Lorelai said, almost too quickly as she turned and wandered back out to the living room to sit on the couch.

"You do," Rory said again, not giving Lorelai a chance to come up with any more excuses. "Does it bother you that they're still together?" she asked quickly, almost worried about what the answer was going to be. Lorelai sputtered for a moment before she got out a less than convincing 'no'. "Uh huh," Rory said, picking up her highlighter again.

"Don't say uh huh, there is no uh huh," Lorelai said quickly, leaning forward on the couch a little. "Anyways, that sounded a little distracted, are you studying?"

"I am, but. . "

"Then I should let you go," Lorelai said quickly and all Rory could do was shake her head and sit back in her chair. "I'll call you tomorrow hon, me and Charlie love ya and we miss ya lots, bye!" she said, adding some false happiness to her voice as she clicked the receivers off and turned her attention to the toddler, just in time to watch her carefully pull an apple skin, devoid of any apple from her mouth and make sure it stuck to the side of the bowl before she picked up the next piece. Lorelai returned her attention to the receiver in her hand for a moment before she tossed it onto the coffee table and flopped back on the couch. There was something about Nicole that didn't sit right with her. She couldn't put her finger on what the something was, but it was there, no matter how many happy faces and "I'm happy for you's" she offered to Luke. Her mind took a sharp detour to the conversation she and Sookie had had last spring on their walk to the burned out Independence Inn, about the thing Luke didn't have for her and the things she didn't have back. She quickly gave her head a shake, hoping to physically remove that train of thought from her head for once and for all. As she turned her attention back to the toddler who was still diligently peeling her apple slices, she had a sinking feeling that she hadn't shaken hard enough.

* * *

Even more concerned about eliminating her dependence on Luke, Lorelai spent the rest of the week avoiding the Luke and the diner. She and Charlie instead sought refuge at Al's or Sookie's. Unfortunately for all parties involved, the novelty of playing in the garden with Jackson wasn't even enough to keep Charlie's displeasure in check. The toddler had a routine and she liked it and was bound and determined to make sure that things got back to normal as soon as possible.

As Friday night dinner approached, Charlie made sure to make everything, from running errands to getting dressed a challenge.

"Come on Charlie," Lorelai complained as she tried to hold the little girl so she could get her into a pair of tights.

"No!" she said firmly as she went back to trying to roll over and get away. Lorelai rolled her eyes and began muttering under her breath as she blew some hair out of her eyes and grabbed Charlie by the ankle and pulled her close again as she began to wrestle a dress onto her.

"Finally," Lorelai said, mostly for herself, once Charlie was dressed. She quickly grabbed her bag, Charlie's and Charlie and headed out the door. "Here, you yell at Charlotte for a while," she said as she strapped her in and handed her the spider before she closed the door and slid into her own seat. When they finally pulled into the driveway of the Gilmore mansion, Lorelai felt no end to the relief of seeing Rory already standing outside of her car. She quickly handed Charlie over to her and nearly cried in relief as the little girl finally stopped complaining.

"So, I've decided I'm going to do it," Rory said, raising her coffee cup in a small salute. Lorelai arched an eye brow as she looked at her eldest before questioning her on her sobriety. After being assured that Rory was indeed sober, Lorelai offered her the ever important advice.

"Wait for the right moment," was all she said as she ushered her girls to the door. When they got inside the house, Lorelai repeated her words of wisdom once more. "Wait for the moment," Lorelai whispered to Rory as she accepted Charlie from her. Rory quickly squared her jaw and marched up to Emily, telling her that she wanted to talk. The pair stared at each other for a moment before Richard burst into the room, announcing that he and Digger Stiles were going into business together.

Lorelai, Rory and Charlie watched as Emily and Richard quickly got into a fight about the fact that Digger wanted to work with Richard to make his father mad. As the fight got more heated, Lorelai and Rory headed to the couch and took a seat. When Emily and Richard finally stormed out of the room, Lorelai looked over at Rory.

"It wasn't the right moment," Rory grumped as she slouched down in the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. Lorelai looked at her for a moment before she began clucking at Rory, much to the delight of Charlie. "I was about to when Grandpa came in. He interrupted, and now Grandma's mad, so I'm sorry if it seems to you like I chickened out, but I didn't and now it's just gonna have to wait," Rory said quickly.

"Mmhmm," Lorelai said as she crossed her legs and sat back for a moment. She started clucking at Rory again as Charlie giggled away.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

I know, I know, it's been a million years. Life has been sucking, what can I say?  


* * *

  
"I need you to talk to Charlie this weekend," Lorelai said as she settled herself onto the couch beside Rory after putting the toddler to bed for the night. She accepted the glass of soda and a bowl of buttery pop corn from Rory.

"About what?" Rory asked as she glanced through the movie choices before picking one and putting it in the VCR.

"About sharing your room. I presented the idea and it was met with a resounding no. As far as she's concerned, it's your room and she has no business being in there without you. She hasn't set foot in your room since you left." Lorelai and Rory looked at each other for a moment before Rory continued on her way to the couch.

"You're kidding about that, right? I mean, I couldn't keep her out of my room last year." All Lorelai could do was shrug her shoulders. "When do you want her moved in?" Rory asked after a moment.

"I don't have a set time limit. Sooner would be better though. I mean, don't stress yourself out about it, just convince her that it's ok for her to live there without you and that if and when you come home, you'll share it." Rory considered this before she agreed.

"Can we start now? I still have some readings to do after this is finished." With a dramatic sigh and an eye roll, Lorelai assured Rory that yes, she could start the movie.  


* * *

  
"Come on you," Rory said the next day when she noticed Charlie standing in the door way of her room. She couldn't help but smile as a large grin erupted over her sisters face as the little girl quickly barrelled into the room and started to climb up onto the bed. "How would you like to sleep here too?" she asked the little girl. Charlie looked at her quizzically for a moment. "Not here in my bed, but in the room, in your bed?"

"Wowy woom," Charlie said confidently.

"Rory and Charlie's room," Rory supplied. Charlie considered this for a moment as she looked around.

"Where?" she asked after a moment. Charlie watched with great interest as Rory quickly got up off the bed and started talking about what pieces of furniture they could move where and how they would fit Charlie's bed into the room. With one final flourish of bravado, Rory started talking about how Charlie would have a big bed, like Rory, when she moved. Charlie's eyes got wide when she heard this. Big beds were far off the ground and she was old enough to know that the higher up you were, the more the fall hurt. "Too big," the little girl said after a moment as she quickly rolled over and slid off of Rory's bed before she hurried to the living room to find Lorelai.

"Well, not really as big as mine," Rory said to the empty bedroom. She had a feeling she'd be hearing about this little snafu from her mother before she went back to school.  


* * *

  
As Rory settled into the routine at school and started to come home less, Charlie and Lorelai began to find their own rhythm without Rory. Ground had been broken at the Dragonfly and work was slowly starting to move ahead and now that construction at the inn was starting to move along, Lorelai began to turn her attention towards tracking down a designer for the inn and keeping Sookie calm about various things.

"No, Sookie, I haven't had a chance to look at them yet," Lorelai said as she came to a stop in the driveway. She had been talking Sookie down about various things since she had picked Charlie up from her day spent with Emily. "I know we have to pick one," she said with a bit of an eye roll before she threw the jeep into park and slid out of the drivers seat before flipping it forward so she could get Charlie out. She rolled her eyes as she listened to Sookie start panicking about kitchen appliances, something there were months away from having to worry about.

"Well, I haven't gotten to them yet because I have been in and out of Hartford all week, attending meetings with suppliers, contractors and dozens of other people who are helping with the inn and then I have to deal with my mother, which is always fun, but I get to deal with an ornery two year old who has discovered that she has free will to assert on everything from how much she eats to what she plays with to how much she does not want to help me save mass amounts of money by giving up diapers," Lorelai shot back as she pulled Charlie out of her seat and stood her on the ground before reaching back into the jeep to grab Charlotte, which she immediately handed to the toddler before she ducked back in to grab Charlie's bag and the take out bags she had picked up. Lorelai resisted the urge to smash her head against the door frame of the jeep in frustration before she shot her arm out and grabbed Charlie before she could get too far away. After pointing Charlie towards the door, she let the toddler go and watched as she headed towards the door, one of Charlotte's legs clutched tightly in her hand. Sookie quickly began to back pedal and apologize, knowing that she had pushed Lorelai too far and she immediately felt guilty.

"Sookie, I love you and I love that you're working on this but I just don't have time right now. . . Yes, I swear I will get to it soon. I swear. Sookie, I swear. . .Yes, I'm lying to you, of course I'm lying to you. Sookie! I will take care of it!" she all but yelled into the phone as she rolled her eyes again as she headed towards the front door. Charlie had already beat her there and was trying her best to turn the knob. "Yeah, yeah, ok. Ok, bye," she said as she finally hung up the phone. She stared at it for a moment before she flipped it closed and shoved it into her purse.

"Momma open," Charlie said, turning her head to look at Lorelai as she continued to reach for the door handle. With a heavy sigh, Lorelai gathered her bags and headed for the door. She got the door open and the pair were greeted with a horrible noise as soon as they set foot in the house. Lorelai immediately dropped the bags, pulled Charlie back and closed the door. Charlie stumbled a little, grabbing Lorelai's pant leg to steady herself as her brain caught up to what had just happened. "Big noise," Charlie commented.

"Big noise is right," Lorelai said as she ran a hand through her hair, trying to figure out what she was going to do. While the noise wouldn't really bother her, she'd had a youth full of too loud rock concerts before Rory had come along but Charlie. . .

"Sugah!" she heard and she and Charlie turned to watch Babette come tearing towards them, broom in hand. "What the hell was that?" she asked as she came to a stop at the bottom the stairs.

"I'm not completely sure," Lorelai replied as she took in Babette's broom. She contemplated making a comment, but decided against it. "Are you and Morey up for a visitor tonight?" she asked, thinking on her feet.

"Of course Sugah! You get that noise figured out, we'll be fine. Come on babe," Babette said, holding out her hand to Charlie.

"Bye momma!" Charlie said happily with a little wave as she toddled down the stairs. "Ap'cot?" she asked Babette immediately. Lorelai called out that she'd let her know what was going on as soon as she could before she turned her attention back to the door. With one last steadying of her nerves and a deep breath, Lorelai surged forward into the house.  


* * *

  
Lorelai trudged into Luke's some time later, a head ach pounding behind her ears. She wandered over to the counter where Luke simply blinked at her for a moment.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he poured her a cup of coffee without even asking.

"What makes you think there's something wrong?" she asked, plastering a forced smile on her face.

"You're wearing glasses," he commented as he put the coffee pot down.

"So? You knew I wore them," she said as she pulled the coffee mug close and inhaled the familiar sent. "I need to find Kirk."

"Why would anyone need to find Kirk?" Luke asked with a bit of a smirk on his face.

"Well, he installed an air raid system in my house, so I kind of need to find him so that I don't have to leave Babette and Morey to raise my kid so she doesn't go deaf," Lorelai said casually as she drank the coffee. "So, I need to find him so I can kill him, but not before he takes the air raid system with him." Luke blinked at her for a moment and she counted down in her head, waiting for the rant to start. She smiled and took another drink as Luke began ranting about killing Kirk and fixing the alarm himself before she silenced him. "Luke, relax. It's Stars Hollow, how hard can it be to find him?" Luke took a deep breath. He had to grudgingly agree with her about things. He eventually went back to work as Lorelai finished her coffee and began a mental list of where to look for Kirk.  


* * *

  
After fruitlessly searching the town for Kirk, including a less than pleasant encounter with Mrs. Gleeson herself, Lorelai returned home to her personal air raid siren and collapsed onto the couch, hands over her ears as she waited for the alarm to quiet down so she could think up a plan. Eventually, the alarm did turn off and Lorelai took a moment to consider her options. With a resigned sigh, she got up and headed for Rory's room. She rummaged around in the desk drawers until she found a set of unused ear plugs and several packets of Post-its. After placing the ear plugs in her ears, Lorelai headed back out into the kitchen to begin tracking the alarm sensors.

Several aspirin and many hours later, Lorelai had managed to map out the sensors. As she trudged to Babette's to pick up Charlie, Lorelai began her next mental task: discovering a way to explain how to stay on the Post-it's to Charlie.  


* * *

  
The next day seemed to crawl on as far as Lorelai was concerned. Charlie had begun to grow bored with the Stay On the Yellow Stick Road game and took to jumping off it, only to giggle when the alarm went off and Lorelai jumped up from where ever she was to scoop her up and hold her tight while they hid in the corner until the alarm shut off again. The only relief Lorelai got from this game was when she kicked Charlie out of the house to play out side.

Lorelai sighed dejectedly as she clicked the off button on the phone again, having left yet another message with Meg at the Stars Hollow Security Company. Lorelai heaved a sigh as she looked up and watched the sun slowly dip behind the horizon. She could feel the chill in the air as well and knew that she was going to have to bring Charlie in soon.

"Come on Squirt," Lorelai finally called out to the little girl. She watched as Charlie ignored her in favour of continuing to converse with the circle of gnomes she had found herself in the middle of. Lorelai called out to her a few more times before she finally pulled herself up off the steps and trudged down to where Charlie was. "Now Charlotte," she said as she picked the toddler up and carried her towards the house as the little girl protested the whole way. Lorelai cringed as they entered the house and Charlie's cries only got louder as the alarm added itself to the noise. "I swear to God," Lorelai muttered as she headed up stairs. "I'm actually going to go through with my threat of killing Kirk this time."  


* * *

  
Lorelai crossed her arms and continued to stare at the alarm panel as a large yawn nearly split her face open. After coming up empty handed in her search for Kirk yesterday, she had simply declared a shopping day and headed to Hartford with Charlie who, fortunately, needed new shoes.

"Anything?" Kirk called out from upstairs.

"Nothing!" Lorelai shouted back at him. Things had been going fine last night. She had put Charlie to bed and she was reading comfortably on her bed and they were both far away from anything that would make the alarm go off. In fact, Lorelai had been thinking about crawling into bed when the alarm suddenly went off and she heard a very familiar squeak downstairs. With an alarming amount of speed, Lorelai had gathered Charlie up and rushed downstairs to pull Rory into a corner to make the alarm stop howling. Shortly after Rory had headed out the next morning, Lorelai had made it her mission to track down Kirk and fortunately, she had.

"How about now?" Kirk called down, snapping her out of her day dream.

"No. Kirk, what is supposed to be happening?" she asked him, turning slightly to look up the stairs. Her frown deepened when Kirk didn't answer. He finally came down a few moments later and she listened to him ramble on about hwy he had installed the alarm behind her back in the first place.

"Okay," she said, cutting him off after a while. "So, uh, Jimmy's out of town, but until he gets back we can . . ." she trailed off, trying to get a direct and to the point answer out of Kirk.

"Change the code," Kirk said calmly as he brushed past Lorelai and tapped a few buttons on the alarm pad.

"To something I know?" she asked hopefully as she leaned over his shoulder.

"You can pick it," he said, stepping aside after a moment. "Just punch in a 7 number sequence," he explained, peaking over her shoulder slightly. She sent him a look and he quickly turned to his tool box, randomly shuffling the tools about. Lorelai took a deep breath as she considered options before she began to punch a sequence in. She hesitated for a moment as Sookie let herself into the house and called out a greeting.

"Did you know your phone's not working?" the chef supplied as she wandered into the living room. "Hey Peanut," she greeted Charlie.

"No," Charlie said automatically, not looking up from the cups she was stacking. Sookie shook her head and turned her attention back to Lorelai, informing her that her phone wasn't working.

"I was working an hour ago," she said as she turned to look at Kirk, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"I'll be right back," he said as he quickly grabbed something out of the tool box and dashed up the stairs.

"Kirk!"

"I have tape!" he called back Lorelai's shoulder's quickly sagged as she let out a heavy sigh.

"You look tired," Sookie remarked, a concerned look on her face as she followed Lorelai to the kitchen.

"Yeah, well, Kirk," Lorelai supplied, gesturing towards the stairs. "Plus, Rory came home last night after she was asleep and I was nearly there and I hadn't warned her about the alarm."

"Yikes."

"Yeah," was the only answer she had as she reached into the fridge and pulled out a jug of lemon water. She left the jug on the table and grabbed a couple of cups from the counter. "Charlie, you want a drink?"

"No!" she hollered from the other room.

"She's very negative today."

"She's very two today," Lorelai corrected. She accepted a full glass from Sookie and listened as the chef told her all about the phone conversation she'd had with Michel. She couldn't help but snicker when she heard the part about Michel being hysterical. "Let's just go down there and talk to him," she said, snapping the two of them out of the fantasy about what life would be like without Michel.

"Right," Sookie agreed, pushing away from the table. The two headed to the living room and Sookie simply stood back and watched as Lorelai gathered up Charlie.

"Come on, car ride," she told Charlie as she found her purse and keys. Charlie ignored her as she continued to stack her cups. "Come on Charlie," she called again as she checked the status on her cell phone. "Charlotte! Let's go!" she called again. Charlie finally turned to shoot her mother a glare before she went back to her cups.

"So, more fun and excitement for me to look forward too, right?" Sookie asked as Lorelai rolled her eyes and picked Charlie up. The 2 year old immediate began to freak out as she tried to limp noodle her way out of Lorelai's grasp.

"How about Charlotte?" she asked as she managed to get a firm grasp on Charlie and the toy spider as they three of them headed out of the house. Charlie ignored Lorelai and continued to whine until Lorelai produced a container of Cheerio's and a juice cup. "Look, grape juice and Cheerio's," she said enthusiastically as she opened the container and tucked it in beside Charlie. "You like grape juice, it makes everything purple," she said with a smile. "Good girl," she said as Charlie finally took the cup in one hand and Charlotte in the other as Lorelai strapped her into her seat. "Have I talked about how much I love it when they're 2?" Lorelai asked as she climbed into the drivers seat. Sookie could only snicker as she ran a hand over her pregnant belly and settled in for the ride to Hartford so they could visit Michel at The Tally Rand, the hotel he was working at for the time being.  


* * *

  
Sookie and Lorelai, Charlie in her arms, stopped outside of the Tally Rand for a moment to take in the building. The women looked at each other for a moment before they marched in and headed towards reception. The pair made several jokes about the perfection of everyone working there and after a brief snicker, Lorelai finally tried to ask some one about Michel. The pair paused as they were completely ignored.

"I wouldn't talk to us either," Lorelai quipped as she and Sookie paused to look around.

"Hey, talk to a boy," Sookie said as she plucked Charlie from Lorelai's arms. "A boy will be nice to you," she said as she nodded towards one of the guys at reception. Sure enough, after casting a critical eye over Sookie and Charlie, the man at the reception desk finished his conversation and called Michel over before quickly walking away. The pair looked at each other again before they heard Michel. They stepped away from the desk and smirked as they watched him sauntering towards them.

"What call?" Michel asked innocently after Sookie and Lorelai cut to chase as to why there were there to see him.

"The call you made to me yesterday, the one where you told me that you called Lorelai and she didn't call back," Sookie clarified with a bit of a smile.

"I make so may calls," Michel said calmly.

"The one where you cried," Sookie pointed out. Lorelai listened to Sookie and Michel start to fight before she finally stepped in and put an end to it.

"Okay, it doesn't matter," she said, putting a hand on Sookie's shoulder to calm her down. "We just want you to know if there was any misunderstanding about wanting you to come with us to the Dragonfly, well, we're sorry," Lorelai said, offering Michel a smile.

"I'm not," Sookie muttered, still angry that Michel made her miss Queer Eye.

"Well, that's very sweet of you to say. Thank you," Michel said, a smile on his face.

"Unless you don't want to come with us," Lorelai started again, as she took a look around. Michel quickly began to passive aggressively bash the virtues of working at the Tally Rand.

"I'll tell you what, I'll think about it and get back to you, okay?" Michel asked, trying not to seem eager about working with Lorelai and Sookie again.

"Nice to have you aboard, Michel," Lorelai said with a smile and a shake of her head.

"I'm busy, go," he said, waving them off dismissively. Sookie and Lorelai shared a look before they turned and headed out of the hotel. "Thank God," Michel muttered as soon as the women were out of ear shot. "Matthew, what?" he demanded, finally answering the voice in his head set.  


* * *

  
"No, no!" Charlie argued as Lorelai tried to convince her to sit in her chair at Luke's.

"Come on Charlie," she complained as she tried again.

"No!"

"Come here," Rory said, holding her arms out. Charlie pouted for a moment, she really wanted her own chair at the table. She eventually decided that Rory's lap was better than the high chair, so she went willingly. "You're very ornery today," Rory commented. Charlie looked up at her for a moment before she turned her attention to the coffee cup that was just out of her grasp.

"She's very 2 today," Lorelai commented as she slid into her own chair. "In fact, she's been very two all week. You were never like this. You were very serious, but you didn't mind rolling with the punches."

"Well, we can't all be perfect like me," Rory quipped as she pulled the empty mug towards Charlie.

"All gone," the little girl commented as she looked in it.

"All gone," Rory agreed.

"Oh, there you are," Miss Patty exclaimed as she came into the diner and headed over to the girls. "Honey, I've got your mail," she said as she handed Lorelai a stack of letters as she sat down at the table.

"Oh great," Lorelai said as she accepted the stack and started to flip through them as Patty lamented the hard time she'd had finding the girls before she moved on to how big Charlie was getting. "You could have just left me a message, I would have stopped by," Lorelai said as she looked up from the mail.

"Oh, there was something marked urgent in there and I just wanted to make sure you got it," she explained.

"Hmm, thank you," Lorelai said as she furrowed her brow and went back to the mail, trying to find the letter in question.

"Alright, I'm leaving," Patty said as she stood up. "Oh, I'm gonna kill that mail carrier. I don't care if he doesn't have a tongue," she muttered as she left the diner.

"Our new mail carrier doesn't have a tongue?" Rory asked as she leaned on the table slightly.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Lorelai exclaimed as she read the urgent letter.

"That's what Patty just said," Rory pointed out, not realising that Lorelai was talking about the letter she was reading. Lorelai quickly corrected Rory and read the cease and desist order to her. The girls quickly packed up and left the diner with the intention of tracking Taylor down and getting to the bottom of the whole thing.

Fortunately, they found him quite quickly, as he was just next door in the soda shop. Before Lorelai could even bring up her complaint to Taylor, he had them ordering ice cream. With a sigh and an eye roll, Lorelai and Rory ordered before the elder Gilmore pulled Taylor aside to discuss the letter he had sent her.

Lorelai quickly spelled out her dilemma, she had a construction crew showing up on Monday, and Taylor quickly told her that she had to make an official presentation. After some more teeth pulling, Lorelai got out of him that she could give the presentation at tonight's town meeting.

"The town meeting it is," she said, trying to keep the aggravation out of her voice, but not completely succeeding.

"Oh, now, don't look so sad. I went through this with my place too. Of course, I knew the rules so I didn't get the embarrassing letter," Taylor whispered with a chuckle.

"Right, okay, great. Well, we'll see you later, Taylor," Lorelai said as she, Rory and Charlie turned to leave.

"Oh, uh. . . " Taylor said quietly.

"Yes?" she asked, turning to face him again, the bowl of ice cream she didn't really want still in her hand.

"That'll be $3.50 for the ice cream," he said meekly.

"And worth every penny, let me tell you," Rory said as she and Charlie shared another spoonful. Lorelai tossed her bowl onto the counter and sent Rory a look as she began digging through her purse for the money. "Sorry, but this is really good," she said enthusiastically as she offered Charlie another spoonful of Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate.  


* * *

  
"Look, I really just need you to disappear with her for a few hours," Lorelai told Rory as she rushed about the house, gathering supplies to put together a presentation about the Dragonfly.

"But. . ." Rory started.

"I know this isn't what we planned, but Sookie will be here in a few minutes and we really need to put this presentation together or mommy may just collapse in a heap and never stop crying." Rory blinked at Lorelai a few times.

"And what, exactly, are we supposed to do?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I don't care," Lorelai said as she spread her supplies out over the kitchen table. "Go to the park, harass Luke, see what Lane's up to, get some tattoos, piercings, what ever your little heart desires, just keep her out of the house until I call you to come home."

"Okay," Rory said as she headed to the cupboard to grab a cup for Charlie before she grabbed a juice bottle out of the fridge. "But just so you know, I'm not missing this meeting," she warned as she dumped some Cheerio's into a baggie before she headed off to round up Charlie.

"Yeah, yeah, you want to see the meeting, go for it," Lorelai said, already elbow deep in projections.

"Come on Charlie," Rory called as she pulled the 2 year old away from her book. "Let's go for a walk." Charlie looked up at Rory for a moment.  
"Otay," she said calmly as she got up and followed her big sister to the door. She could read any time she wanted, but spending time with Rory was a rarity these days. Charlie stood calmly as Rory slipped a sweater on her and did up her runners before they grabbed each other's hand and headed out the door.

The walk into town was especially nice this time of year with a few of the trees just starting to change colour. It was also the calm before the storm. In a few more weeks, a month at the most, Stars Hollow would be full to bursting with tourists who wanted one last get away while the weather was still nice as well as all the tourists who were simply spending the day to see the leaves before shopping for antiques.

"Ohh! Ooh!" Charlie said as she abruptly started pulling Rory to the side of the road as she pointed at something in the distance. Rory shook her head and allowed Charlie to pull her towards what ever it was she thought she saw. "Yum," Charlie said as she plucked what had to be the last flowing weed in all of Connecticut. Rory couldn't help but snicker at her sister, yum was still used to describe everything from something yummy to something pretty.

"Very nice," Rory commented as she crouched down and Charlie quickly stuck her flower in Rory's face for her to smell. "Hang on to it?"

"Ya," the toddler said as she pulled the flower back and looked at it one last time before she turned her gaze up to Rory, signalling that they could continue on their walk.

Climbing back onto the side of the road, the pair continued their walk into town, Rory filling the silence by naming the things Charlie was pointing to. Rory had a feeling that although she couldn't pronounce many of the words, she was storing them up for a later date.

"Lane!" Rory called out when she and Charlie made it to the town square.

"Lane!" Charlie echoed with a smile as she bounced a little. If there was anyone she loved as much as Rory, it was Lane.

"Hey!" she called back as she jogged over to greet the pair. "I didn't know you were home this weekend," she explained as she bent down and scooped Charlie up.

"A bit of a surprise, I ran out of quarters sooner than I thought I would," she admitted with a shrug as she readjusted the straps on the back pack a little.

"Ah," Lane said with a knowing nod. "So, what are you two up to?" she asked as she put Charlie back down. The toddler had had enough of being held and was ready for some more action. Rory quickly grabbed her hand as she made a run for it.

"Not much. Want to entertain us for a while?" Rory asked hopefully a she tried to hang onto Charlie's hand. She eventually gave up and settled for hanging on to the hood of Charlie's sweater. She was now starting to understand why all of her sister's outwear now had hoods on the back.

"Why not?" Lane asked with a shrug as she and Rory quickly glanced around the square, trying to decide where to go.

"Go!" Charlie said urgently, pulling on Rory's hand as she pointed towards the park behind Miss Patty's. Rory and Lane both looked down at the toddler before they looked at where she was pointing. Charlie looked up at Rory with big eyes as she pulled on her hand.

"Some how, I think our destination has just been chosen for us," Lane mused with a smile that Rory returned.

"Apparently," Rory said as the trio headed off towards the park. Fortunately, Charlie was very much only interested in the swings, so Lane and Rory were able to spend time catching up as they took turns pushing her.

"What time is it?" Lane asked after a while. Rory took a moment to check her watch and Lane frowned. "I should run, dinner," she said, a less than pleased look on her face.

"Good luck," Rory called after her as she watched Lane dash across the square towards home. "What about you, are you hungry?" she asked Charlie.

"No," Charlie responded automatically. She wasn't done swinging yet.

"Are you sure?" Rory asked again. Some where along the line, the sky had started to darken without them noticing.

"Ya! Go!" she said, kicking her feet, trying to make the swing go higher. Rory sighed and rolled her eyes as she stated pushing again.  


* * *

  
"You smell like Luke's fries," Lorelai accused when Rory and Charlie met up with her, Sookie and Michel at the town meeting.

"You never called so we had to fend for our selves," Rory said with a shrug as the took seats in the front row. "Strange sitting up here," Rory commented. "No one to hide behind when Taylor figures out it's us making the comments."

"There will be no comments tonight," Lorelai said firmly. "We are here on official Dragonfly business. We have to be good for once."

"Bummer," Rory complained as she slumped a little in her seat.

"You're telling me," Lorelai muttered as she passed her folder to Sookie and accepted Charlie from Rory. "Did you have fun little girl?" she asked the toddler.

"Yip," Charlie replied as she settled herself in her mother's lap and quickly started sucking her thumb while flicking the end of one of Charlotte's legs with her finger.

"Well, I guess I can't argue with that," she said as Taylor finally came in and called the meeting to order.  


* * *

  
"Knock'em dead!" Rory called after her mother when Taylor finally relented and let them step up to give their presentation.

"Me too," Charlie grumbled as she tried to escape Rory's grasp. She had been dozing in Lorelai's arms and was none too pleased with the interruption or the fact that she now found herself back in Rory's lap.

"Not this time," Rory whispered as she hung on to her sister. "Mom needs to concentrate." Charlie frowned and pouted, but stayed put as Lorelai started to give the presentation. Rory's optimistic smile began to fall as Taylor began to nit pick the presentation, barely letting Lorelai get anything out before he started to either ask questions about her statement or simply make comments about them.

"Have you noticed, this is not going very well," Michel finally leaned in and whispered to Lorelai. Rory took a quick moment to glance around at the rest of the people in the meeting, trying to judge their reactions to the presentation while Lorelai took a deep breath and tried to start again.

"Taylor, everyone there will be millions of questions, some of them even legitimate," she said, shooting a look at Taylor who simply sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "But the bottom line is, you know me. I've been part of this town for. . . Well, look how big my kids are, for that long. And opening this inn has been a dream of mine and Sookie's for most of that time. Along with Michel, we plan to make this community as proud of the historic," she made sure to emphasis the historic part. "Dragonfly Inn as you were when the same team was running the Independence Inn," Lorelai finished her little speech with a bit of a flourish and a smile.

"You mean the place that burned down on your watch?" Taylor automatically asked, leaning forward to look at the trio. Lorelai's head immediately dropped forward as she let out a sigh while Sookie shot Taylor a look.

"Can I slap him?" Michel whispered to Lorelai. Undeterred by all of this, Lorelai took a moment to pull herself together before she started talking again, this time about how the Dragonfly Inn would benefit the local economy. Unfortunately, before she got very far, her cell phone started to ring.

"Uh, this call is coming from the house," she said to Rory, still glancing between her girls and the caller ID that was flashing on her phone.

"But we're here," Rory responded, equally confused. Lorelai quickly excused herself, leaving Michel and Sookie to continue the presentation while she stepped outside to see who was calling from her house. She rolled her eyes in exasperation when she heard Kirk on the other end, talking about how he had actually caught a prowler trying to break into the garage.

"Female, approximately eighteen years old, Korean," he described her. Lorelai's shoulders fell and she rolled her eyes, again.

"Kirk, that's Lane. You know Lane," she told him, trying to remain calm. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Rory and Charlie slipping out of the sliding doors to join her.

"I thought I knew Lane, but now I think she's in some kind of gang." Lorelai shook her head as she heard Lane calling to her to help them out.

"They are a musical group, Kirk," Lorelai assured him. "Honey, go sort it out," she told Rory. "Take her with you."

"Got it," Rory said as she quickly scooped up Charlie and the pair headed home.

"Rory and Charlie are on their way home," she told Kirk. "Brown hair, blue eyes, Rory's about 5'7". Charlie's about 2'5" . . .don't' cuff them."

"10-4," Kirk acknowledged her.

"Okay," she said, more than a little frustrated, as she hung up on Kirk. Just as she was squaring her shoulders in preparation to go back in and deal with Taylor, she heard the large sliding doors slide open and she looked up in time to see Michel escorting Sookie out of Miss Patty's. Just as she started to ask what happened, Michel and Sookie beat her to the punch, explaining that as soon as she left the dance studio, Taylor stood up and adjourned the meeting over their objections. "Well, where is he? Where'd he go?" she asked frantically as she began scanning the town square for Taylor.

"He was the first one out the door," Sookie said.

"Unbelievable," Lorelai said as she finally spotted him. "Hmmm. . . You can run, but you can't hide," she muttered as she took off across the street to catch Taylor. She quickly confronted him about adjourning the meeting, reminding him that it was his idea that they make a presentation and he quickly threw back that it didn't matter since they still had to have a walk through of the property.

"I and other members of the Historical Preservation Society need to examine the property in person. You didn't think we were gonna make a decision based on a little chat, did you?" he asked with a chuckle. "I'm sure I mentioned a walk-through," he said casually at the end, a dismissive wave of his hand accompanying the statement.

"I don't think you did," Lorelai said, working very hard to keep her tone level and civil.

"Well, I'm mentioning it now," he said with a shrug. She watched as he casually cast his glance down at his shoes.

"Okay, so, when's the walk-through?" she asked hopefully, prompting Taylor to start talking again. Taylor quickly began to talk about scheduling it for next month before Lorelai jumped all over him with the fact that she had work men coming on Monday. She quickly began asking him if they could do the walk-through on Sunday.

"It'll have to be before church," he said. She screamed in frustration on the inside as she realised he was starting to manipulate her.

"Okay, so midmorning?" she asked hopefully.

"Six?" Taylor supplied instead after pretending to think about it for a moment.

"Six? Six in the morning?" Lorelai asked in disbelief, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there was a six in the morning.

"Or another day. . . I could take it up with the society. . . "

"No, no, six is fine. Six sharp," she said quickly, making sure there was something that resembled a smile on her face.

"See you then," he said happily as he continued on his way.

"Bright and early," she called after him with a wave. She closed her eyes and let out a breath as she tried to imagine what was going through his mind before she turned and headed back to Sookie and Michel who were still standing anxiously outside of Miss Patty's. "Six am tomorrow we have to be at the Dragonfly," she told them.

"What?" Sookie asked, more than a little shocked to hear this.

"The Historical Society needs to take a walk through of the property and Taylor says 6 am, so we will be there at 6 am," she said., waving an arm around the emphasize her point.

"All of us?" Michel asked, hoping to get out of this.

"Are you part of the Dragonfly?" Lorelai asked him. He just looked at her. "You will be there, Michel. If I have to be there and Sookie has to be there, then you have to be there too. No arguments."

"Fine," he said as he turned and left in a huff.

"6 am. . . What is he up to?" Sookie asked as she and Lorelai headed towards Sookie's house.

"Who knows," Lorelai said with a shake of her head. "So, that was Kirk calling me."

"Why was he calling you?"

"I guess Lane and the band set the alarm off when they showed up to hold auditions in the garage and, of course, because it's Kirk. . . " she trailed off. They both knew what she was getting at.

"Ah," she said with a knowing grin. "Everything's fine though?"

"I assume," she said with a shrug as she slipped her hands into her almost too tight pockets. "I sent Rory and Charlie home to straighten it out, I warned him not to cuff them and I haven't gotten any more phone calls, so I assume all is right."  
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. I'll bring the coffee," Sookie said as they paused outside of her house.

"My hero," Lorelai said as she gave Sookie a wave before she continued on her way. Lorelai took her time as she headed home, enjoying the night because she was more than a little sure that it would be one of the last of the year. She ran a hand over the top of a picket fence as she walked by it, wishing she had a stick to drag across it like she had done when she was small before she tucked her hand back into her pocket with a sigh, picked up her pace and headed home to her girls.  


* * *

  
"Scrubbing shower grout with a toothbrush," Sookie said with a bit of a smirk. She and Lorelai had been standing outside of the Dragonfly for nearly half an hour while Charlie slept on in her car seat in the jeep.

"Sure, sure," Lorelai agreed as she took a sip of coffee. "Flossing with that really, really fine floss that cuts between your teeth like a razor," she said, almost gleefully. The members of the Historical Preservation Society were still al busily milling around the Inn, pointing at things, discussing them and then making notes. Lorelai leaned around Sookie to take a peak at Charlie.

"How do they not wake up sore?" Sookie asked as she turned to look too. They stared at Charlie who was slumped over in her seat in what looked like a ridiculously uncomfortable position. Lorelai shrugged and shook her head as she took another pull from her coffee cup. "Staring into the sun."

"'Til you're blind," Lorelai added, pointing a finger at Sookie.

"Absolutely," she agreed with a shrug.

"I feel very ugly this morning," Michel announced as he finally arrived and wandered over to the group. Lorelai and Sookie quickly filled Michel in on how long the Society had been poking around before they went back to their game. He listened to them for a moment, a confused look on his face, before he asked what they were doing.

"We're listing all the things we'd rather be doing than this," Lorelai answered simply. Sookie nodded and Michel made a bit of a face before they all turned their attention to Miss Patty and Taylor who had just emerged from the Dragonfly.

"What a mug," Sookie muttered, making a face of her own when she took in the look of disapproval on Taylor's face.

"It's like he sucked a lemon," she said, as she eyed Taylor and Patty. Lorelai quickly handed her cup of coffee off to Sookie when it looked like Taylor and Patty were nearly done discussing what they had seen. With Michel muttering something about Taylor in the back ground, she quickly headed over to Patty and Taylor. After some forced nicety with Taylor, she pulled Patty aside to try and figure out how it was going.

Lorelai quickly began pleading for some of Patty's pull with Taylor, but she made a get away, claming that she needed her pull for herself. Lorelai watched in dismay as Patty quickly scurried away and Taylor came over, requesting a consultation. With a sigh. Lorelai put on her best business woman face and happy smile and headed over to him. She wasn't all that surprised when he started to tell her about the rotting porch, that had been one of the first things Luke had told them when he had looked things over. What really got her was when Taylor started to talk about building a bridge or a clear Lucite porch.

Her face immediately fell as she tried to figure out exactly how he had arrived at this decision. As he rambled on about the porch and historical buildings and how buildings became historical, something inside of her snapped. The little pot of coffee that had been simmering suddenly broke into a violent boil and she exploded all over Taylor.

"That's it!" she cried as she lunged at him and grabbed him by the lapels. Taylor, feathers somewhat ruffled, tried to get her to let go. "The hoops!" she cried. "The hoops with the jumping and the fire and the hoops!" she told him, managing to even shake him a little though he has quite a bit of weight on her. Sookie and Michel both tilted their heads to the side as they watched Lorelai argue with Taylor. They were able to hear snippets of the argument, but not the whole thing.

"Who do you think is winning?" Michel asked.

"Hard to tell. . . " Sookie said as they continued to watch. "Oh, Lorelai, I think," she said as they watched her let go of Taylor and smooth his lapels before he called out to the group to get back on the bus. "Hey, when do you think you'll . . ." she asked Lorelai as she stalked by. She had heard enough to know that Lorelai needed to ask Luke about something. Lorelai stopped long enough to point to the jeep before she continued on her way. "Short cut to Luke's," Sookie said with a nod as Lorelai quickly broke into a run as she cut down the wooded path behind the Dragonfly.

"How is she going to get over Potter's Creek?" Michel asked as he and Sookie, still holding Lorelai's coffee cup, turned to watch her dash off into the woods.

"Jump it?" Sookie asked, not really sure what else to suggest. Michel and Sookie looked at each other for a moment before Charlie finally woke up and demanded some attention. Sookie quickly headed to the jeep, putting the coffee cups on the hood before she got Charlie out of the back.

"Momma?" she asked Sookie as she calmed down.

"She'll be back," Sookie assured her as she wandered back over to Michel.

"How long are we going to stand here?" he asked as he and Charlie cast a critical eye over each other.

"You can go any time I suppose," Sookie said. "We're going to wait for Lorelai to come back."

"How do you know she's coming back?" he asked, still keeping an eye on Charlie. Charlie, on the other hand had grown bored of Michel. With a yawn, she rested her head on Sookie's shoulder as she started to suck her thumb and take in the Dragonfly property.

"Because she left her kid and her jeep here," Sookie said with a shake of her head. Michel made a small noise in the back of his throat before he turned on his heel and headed back to his car. Sookie shook her head as she watched him go before she turned her attention to Charlie.  


* * *

  
"Stupid nature!" Lorelai grumbled as she came to Potter's Creek. "Stupid bugs and trees and water and nature!" She stared at the creek in front of her as she tried to decide if she could jump it or not. "Ew! Gross!" she complained when she didn't make the jump and landed in the nearly knee high water.

"Whoa!" was all she got out as she quickly took off out of the water and up the small embankment. She stopped for a moment and looked back at the beaver that was still staring at her. The animal had made a lunge for her before she had shot out of the water. "I hate nature!" she yelled again as she quickly started to run towards Luke's again.

"Give him his ice-cream truck!" she called out to Luke as she practically fell into the diner.

"What?" he asked her as he looked up from what the ledger he was working on.

"I forged a stream," she told him, still out of breath, as she lifted up her leg so he could see her wet pant leg. He frowned and leaned over the counter, slightly more confused when he saw that her other pant leg was just as wet. "I almost got attacked by a beaver and I'm not leaving here till you agree," she told him as she finally made it to the counter. She leaned on it heavily as she fixed him with a stare.

"To what?" he asked causally, finally putting his pencil down.

"You don't own the street," Lorelai started again. "You own the building. It's a public street. Just let him park his stupid truck," she said, banging her hand on the counter to emphasize her point. He shook his head a little and asked her to explain, since he had no idea what was going on. She frowned at him for a moment before she launched into an abbreviated story about Taylor and he want to park a truck out side the diner.

As Luke considered this for a moment, Lorelai grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser and began to blot at the sweat that had formed on her face from her mad dash to the diner.

"Sure," Luke replied calmly after a moment. Lorelai stopped what she was doing and stared at him, not really sure if she had just heard him agree or not.

"He never asked?" she demanded. She had just about caught her breath but this little piece of information had sent her chest heaving again. Luke confirmed that Taylor hadn't asked, but if he had, he would have said yes. Lorelai considered this for a moment as she went back to blotting and catching her breath. Luke watching in mild amusement as Lorelai began ranting, but still realised that a couple had walked into the diner.

He assured them that her ranting would pass as he watched her with a look of mild amusement on her face.

"Do you have any coffee?" she asked suddenly at the end of her rant.

"I'm not giving you coffee," he said with a scoff.

"I don't have time for coffee," she said, holding a hand up. "I gotta go find Taylor and close this deal. You think he's back at the store?" she asked as she moved slowly towards the door.

"Or having his dirty mustache cleaned," Luke quipped. He remembered her going on about dirty mustaches and dark rooms at some point.

"You're good with the truck?" she asked again as she came to the door.

"I'm good with the truck," he assured her with a small smile.

"Bless you," she said with a nod and a smile as she slipped out. Lorelai quickly marched across the square to the Market and marched in. "Taylor!" she bellowed. The few employees who were working looked at her with mild curiosity before one of them pointed to the produce section. Lorelai marched over to him and tapped him on the shoulder, announcing that he could have his truck. He quickly thanked her and told her that her construction crew was welcome to come any time. Lorelai quickly thanked him before marching out of the store and heading back to the Dragonfly as quickly as she could.  


* * *

  
"Wow, what happened to you?" Sookie asked when Lorelai finally appeared back on the property.

"There was an incident with the creek and a beaver and nature," she said, still slightly out of breath. "I don't really want to talk about it. Long story short, everything is ok."

"Taylor said we can start?" Sookie asked excitedly.

"Taylor said we can start," Lorelai confirmed. "Hey, uh, where's my kid?" she asked casually as she glanced around.

"She's hiding," Sookie said, pointing to the trembling blanket that was sitting inside the jeep. Lorelai glanced over to where the passenger side door was open and Charlie was sitting on the floor with a receiving blanket over her head.

"Ah," Lorelai said with a nod. "Well, I guess we can't go to Luke's for pancakes then," she called out loudly.

"No!" Charlie shrieked as she pulled the blanket off her head as quickly as she could before shuffling to the edge of the door and sliding down. "No, no!" she said quickly as she ran over to Lorelai.

"Oh!" Lorelai exclaimed, pretending to be surprised. "There you are!" she finished as she scooped Charlie up. "How about you? Would you like pancakes too?" she asked Sookie. Sookie couldn't help but chuckle, but decline. She had promised Jackson that she'd come home when they were done at the inn. They all said their good byes before slipping into their respective cars and heading to their destinations.  


* * *

  
Rory gave a contented sigh as she wandered slowly through town, enjoying the rest of the warmth of one of the last pre-winter days Connecticut was going to have. She casually glanced up and down the street before wandering across to the market where she ran into Lane.

"How's it going?" Rory asked Lane when she ran into her in town.

"Horrible," she said with a sigh as they wandered down the side walk towards Doose's Market.

"Total strike out?" Rory asked, hoping it wasn't.

"Total," Lane said as they came to a stop just out side of the market. "At first, I felt bad for them, so lacking in talent, yet so clueless," Lane said and Rory nodded in agreement. "Then I just felt bad for their guitars," she clarified and Rory couldn't help but snicker.

"I'm sorry," Rory said, resting a hand on Lane's arm.

"I appreciate that, thank you," she said sincerely. "My ears want to fly off my head when we're stuck in the garage with them. Hey, I'm going to the music store to look at things I can't afford, want to come?" Lane asked hopefully.

"Sure, why not?" Rory said with a shrug as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She had been heading to Doose's to pick something up, but she could grab it on the way home. "What's all that about?" Rory asked as she nodded over at all the tables and chair set up in the square.

"A wedding," Lane answered casually as they continued on their way.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Rory said sarcastically. "For who?"

"Dean," Lane answered simply Rory stopped dead in her tracks when she heard that.

"Dean. Dean Forrester?" she asked, still not moving from her place on the side walk.

"Yeah," Lane said as she turned and walked over to Rory. "He and Lindsay are getting married."

"Wow," was all Rory could say as she and Lane took in the sea of white. "Why on earth would they want to get married?" The pair of teenagers looked at each other before Lane shrugged and grabbed Rory's arm, pulling her in the direction of the music store. Rory stared at the set up a little longer, allowing Lane to guide her to the music store.

She was glad Dean was happy, but why did he have to get married at 18 she wondered. She finally refocused her attention on Lane when she felt the artificial coolness of the air conditioned music store. The two continued to gossip and talk as they milled around the music store, making up for the time lost while Rory was away at Yale.  


* * *

  
"Hey kid," Lorelai called out brightly when she saw Rory wander out of the music store. Lorelai had been wandering around town, gathering supplies for the night's festivities.

"Hey," Rory threw back as she jogged over. "Where's Mini Me?' she asked.

"Ah, Patty and Babette kidnapped her for a while. That is an ocean of tulle out there," Lorelai commented as she and Rory paused for a moment to stare at the town square.

"Dean and Lindsay are getting married," Rory filled her in, glancing over the square again.

"Get out!" Lorelai said, a smile on her face.

"Really," she said calmly as she turned to look up at her mother. Lorelai's jaw dropped a little further as she thought about this for a moment.

"Why the hell are they getting married at 18?" she asked. "Oh, maybe she's pregnant!"

"Mom," Rory complained, rolling her eyes as she gave Lorelai's arm a tug to get her moving again. Rory listened to her mother listing off reasons as to why Dean and Lindsay were getting married, none of which included because they were young and in love. "Uh, mom?" Rory finally asked as she looked over her shoulder and saw Kirk following them in this little tiny yellow car.

"Yeah babe?" she asked with a smile on her face, still greatly amused by her own imagination.

"Why is Kirk following us in a little clowny car?" Lorelai took a moment to glance at Kirk over her shoulder. She returned a little wave he gave her.

"He's looking out for me and Charlie," she replied as they kept walking towards Luke's.

"Why?" Rory asked.

"Well, he got the alarm disconnected."

"Thank God," Rory threw in as they waited for a car to pass.

"Here here," Lorelai agreed. "Then there was something about him being related to a knight, but not Ted Night and then he said he was going to look out for us while you were away." Rory grew quiet as she puzzled this out for a moment, still not sure how knight led to Ted Night, but with Kirk, anything was possible.

"Okay," she said after a moment, still mulling this over.

"I think we should just mark this in the 'good for him' column."

"Works for me," Rory said as they headed into the diner where they were greeted with a nod from Luke before Patty and Babette began calling them over to discuss Yale and why on EARTH wasn't Lorelai bringing Charlie to see them more often?  


* * *


End file.
